m 
FEB 4 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
viciousness may still remain after the remov¬ 
al of horns, thedeadly means of exercising it 
are lacking. Alike from economical and hu¬ 
mane motives, the tyrannical and wasteful 
reign of horns should soon be over, at least 
in this country of love of thrift and hatred of 
oppression. 
THE SILAGE QUESTION. 
S. T. M., Bath, N. Y.—What a revolution 
there seems to be of late with regard to the 
ensilage question. It is not more than a j'ear 
or two since experienced farmers and scientists, 
from John J. Smith to Sir J. B. Lawes, were 
extremely doubtful of the advantages claimed 
for it. We were told of a considerable num¬ 
ber of those who had tried it, who bad aban¬ 
doned their siloes in disgust and gone back to 
the old methods of preserving fodder. 
The butter from silage-fed cows, we are 
told, would not keep, and their milk was unfit 
for canning. Conservative papers cried a 
halt, and even progressive papers, like the 
Rural, advised people to ■“ go slow” until 
the merits or demerits of the new process 
should be demonstrated. Are they really 
demonstrated now ? Whether they are or not, 
■the “ brakes are off” everywhere, and all are 
rushing, or are being urged to rush into the 
business. To what is this great revolution 
due ? Is it to better knowledge of the stage 
at which the fodder should be ensiloed, to im¬ 
proved methods of ensiloing, to a wiser use of 
the silage, or to all three? What about 
“ sweet ’’silage, about which so much is said 
in Great Britain and so little here ? Has the 
increased use of this had anything to do with' 
the “ revolution,” and what is the difference 
m treatment for the production of “sweet” 
and of “ sour ” or “ acid ” silage ? 
I don’t think that the real position of silage 
among the farm economies of the various 
parts of the country can be definitely ascer¬ 
tained for the next five years, or, perhaps, 
for double that period, and while it might 
be all right to “ go ahead fast ” in many 
sections, it would, for the present at any 
rate, be better to 1 • go slow ” in others. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Colorado. 
Creswell, Jefferson Co., Jan. 30.—This 
is not a very good climate for all kinds of veg¬ 
etables,- especially corn, tomatoes, melons and 
all the vine family. Our seasons are too short 
for them to mature. The altitude of this 
place is nearly 8,000 feet. Rye, oats, barley, 
wheat and potatoes are our staple crops, and 
they produce well in favorable seasons. I 
have raised 40 bushels of rye; 100 of oats; 92 
of barley; 37% bushels of wheat and 8 tons of 
potatoes per acre, and all of the very best 
quality. This appears to be the home of the 
pea, for the vines continue to bear until they 
are.killed by frost. All the peas that I have 
received from the Rural are the best I raise. 
The Rural Blush potato produces 100 per cent, 
more than any other kind that I have raised: 
quality good. They are quite pink inside 
which injures their sale in Denver 25 cents 
per 100 pounds. It is a pity they have this 
fault, for they are very dry and mealy, excel¬ 
lent keepers and the best we have for 
spring and up till new ones take the place of 
old. G. Y. A. 
Iowa. 
Des Moines, Polk Co., Feb. 3.—We have 
passed through one of the coldest Januarys on 
record. We have not suffered in this section 
as they did in some of our northwestern coun¬ 
ties. Coal got to be pretty scarce here seve¬ 
ral times, though by economy we got through 
until the roads were opened. Our coal dealers 
did not take advantage of the coal famine and 
put the price up; but stuck to old prices— 
§1.75 to §2.25 per ton for soft coal. Our rail¬ 
roads are all open now and our coal banks are 
all in working order. The great bulk of snow 
has been going fast for the last three days. 
It really looks now as if our land would get 
wet once more. Plenty stock water now. 
Corn is selling at 50 cents per bushel; oats 25 
cents; potatoes 80 cents; hay §10 to §15 per 
ton. The frost got into most of the cellars 
through this country, and we lost a good por¬ 
tion of what vegetables we had in them. Po¬ 
tatoes, onions, parsnips, and cabbage very 
scarce. f. s. w. 
Oregon. 
Grant’s Pass, Josephine Co. . Jan. 20.—The 
weather is colder now than it has been in nine 
years. So far I have not heard of any loss in 
stock, but many cattle are very thin. But 
little wheat was sown till late in the fall; but 
I cannot say whether it has been injured by 
the freeze or not. Our crops last year were 
very good, especially the vegetable crops; 
prices, however, are rather low, but the pros¬ 
pect is flattering for good prices in the spring, 
for since the California find Oregon Railroad 
is now connected and in running order, w r e of 
Southern Oregon will be heard of, for our 
country is just good enough for any one. 
J. S. MCF. 
Pennsylvania. 
Carlton, Mercer Co., Feb. 1.—We had 
bare ground and some pretty hard freezing 
up to Jan. 1. Since then we have had snow 
enough to protect grain in the ground. Yester¬ 
day and the day before it thawed and rained 
but froze up last night before the sleighing 
was spoiled. Wheat is selling for 90 cents, 
corn 56 cents; oats, 40 cents; potatoes, 50 to 
65 cents. j. a. h. 
Valua ble Tree Suggestions. —Our esteem¬ 
ed correspondent, Wm. Falconer, in a prize 
essay published in the report of the Queens 
County Agricultural Society, says that in first 
settling upon a place as a home let us begin 
aright. Let the selection of trees be governed 
by the size and location of the place. Don’t 
plant a catalpa on a hilltop or a Lombardy 
Poplar in a hollow; don’t plant big trees in 
little places; don’t smother up your house with 
trees or spread them broadcast over your 
grounds. But plant large shade trees along 
the street or the outskirts of your property, 
and a specimen or group here and there upon 
your place where shade is needed or good ef¬ 
fect demands it. Don’t overcrowd your trees. 
Keep open every good view around you. Re¬ 
member the little trees as, the magnolias, dog¬ 
woods and kolreuteria; they are often the 
most interesting and most desirable in our 
gardens; retain a place for them. All well- 
grown, thrifty trees are ornamental, but as 
garden trees some are more appropriate than 
others. In parks and large gardens we can 
afford to have an extensive variety of trees, 
but in small or medium-sized gardens have 
nothing but the very .finest—the most beauti¬ 
ful of evergreens and the loveliest of “flower¬ 
ing” trees. Have such as will be a source of 
permanent pleasure, and which with age shall 
increase in glory; for instance, the Douglas 
Fir among evergreens, the Fern leaved Weep¬ 
ing Birch among graceful trees, Rivers’s 
Purple-leaved Beech among colored trees, and 
the Yulau Magnolia among flowering trees. 
Remember that a Pitch Pine needs as much 
care as a Colorado Blue Spruce,and a common 
barberry as a Japanese Snowball (V. plica- 
tum); then why waste our land, our time, our 
love on common-place material? The first 
cost of the finer trees may be a little more 
than that of common stock, but rather pay 
the additional price of the superior trees and 
have fewer of them than accept a host of in¬ 
different varieties gratis. Have something 
that you shall always be proud of, something 
that your village shall be proud of, something 
that the people who pass by on the street shall 
stop to admire. 
By all means plant evergreen trees; they are 
so cheerful in winter, comely in summer and 
desirable at all times. They do not im¬ 
poverish the land about them to the same ex¬ 
tent as do deciduous trees, nor do they cover 
so much ground. They are clean trees, the 
place isn’t littered up by fallen leaves or 
broken branches, and wind storms seldom 
break them much. They are not unruly grow¬ 
ers and seldom need much attention to retain 
their model form. Indeed, they are so pretty 
in their youthful state that we sometimes 
grieve to find them hastening into arboreal 
growth. But we can check their lofty aspir¬ 
ations with benefit to themselves and much 
improvement in their appearance. Let us 
put into close wide-spreading branches what, 
if left alone, would run into stature, and have 
their branches evenly disposed and lap over 
lap from the ground up. This we can do by 
allowing the leader only 6 or 12 inches’ growth 
a year, and in May disbudding the points of 
such branches as are apt to extend too far. 
Mr. Falconer quite agrees with the R. N.-Y. 
in its estimate of the Norway Spruce and Bal- 
som Fir. He says that the spruces rank with 
firs in an ornamental sense, and may be used 
and treated in about the same way. They 
usually compose the major part of our ever¬ 
greens,and the Norway Spruce is more plant¬ 
ed than any other sort. This should not be. 
If we ca ? accommodate only a few trees, let us 
have something neat and choice, and which, 
as it increases, in age, shall increase in beauty 
and value, the care is the same. The Norway 
spruce is a common, coarse tree, good enough 
for shelter liues or hedges, but unworthy, in 
the face of so many pretty and choice species, 
of a position in our front yard; besides, after it 
is 20 or 25 years old, it isn’t very handsome in 
this country. But it is a rapid grower and 
pretty when young, easily gotten uj> ami 
cheap, and easily transplanted. 
Planting. —The holes should be large, wide 
and deep; the deepening is to loosen the soil 
in the bottom. Don’t make a basin-shaped 
hole: on the contrary, after digging out the 
hole fill it with the surface soil, making a hill¬ 
ock in the middle of the bole. Plant on the 
top of this hillock the butt of the tree 
which should be as deep, but no deeper, in the 
ground than it was before. Spread out the 
roots on all sides and introduce fine, mellow 
earth between them. Pack the soil very firm¬ 
ly as you go along, and at the finish give a 
thorough soaking of water. Stake at once if 
necessary. If the soil is poor, sandy or grav¬ 
elly, it would be a pity to trust a valuable 
tree to its mercy; better cart away the poor 
soil and replace with good earth. At plant¬ 
ing time head in your deciduous trees pretty 
well; they will be more apt to live; after they 
get rooted and started they will grow fast 
enough We are often told to head in ever¬ 
greens in the same way, but don’t you do it. 
An evergreen cannot recover itself as quickly 
as can a deciduous tree. You may head in 
Norway Spruces and Austrian Pines, but in 
the case of choice little evergreens we cannot 
afford to cut them in. 
Manure. —In planting trees don’t mix ma¬ 
nure with the soil, and don’t fill in manure 
into the bottom of the hole. Use good, rich, 
friable soil only. But after the young trees 
have started into vigorous growth, liberal 
mulchings of farm-yard manure over their 
roots will benefit them immensely. 
Raising Roadsters and Draft Horses.— 
When Prof. A. J. Cook, of the Michigan Ag. 
College, commenced farming, as he writes to 
the Weekly Press, he had some good mares— 
roadsters — whicn weighed 1,000 to 1,100 
pounds each. As one of the best studs of Ham- 
bletonians in the United States was near 
by, he commenced to breed this class of ani¬ 
mals. He now has several colts ranging from 
a few months to six years of age; handsome, 
gay, fine travelers, and very pleasant to han¬ 
dle. But though costing simply in prospect 
§35 each, he doubts if he could get moi'e than 
§150 for any of them. Of course, they may, 
some of them,be very speedy, but how is he to 
find it out? The liability is that they all are 
simply good roadsters. He believes if he had 
commenced with Percherons he would have 
been several hundreds of dollars better off 
to-day. He has commenced now to breed the 
heavy horses. He keeps four horses to do his 
farm work, all mares. He aims to have two 
foals early in the spring and the others late 
in the fall. The dams of the former do the 
hard fall work, those of the latter the 
heavy work of spring. By care he finds 
this colt-raising in no wise interferes with 
the work. He also finds that the fall colt 
often nearly catches up with the one of the 
previous spring. The colt with its mother 
ruus during winter in a large box stall, and 
soon learns to eat heartily of silage, bran and 
oats, which are given very liberally to its 
dam. In the spring it is weaned and turned 
onto good pasture, and it just more than 
grows. 
From the N. Y. Tribune: “A Capital 
Cartoon. —To represent them as ‘Literary 
Experiment Stations,’ each with half a man, 
projected from a big hole in the roof, pulling 
at the treasury surplus, while a drove of hogs 
and long-geared horned cattle go up and down 
the yard seeking what they may devour, is 
the happy thought of the Rural New- 
Yorker. But how could our contemporary 
depart so far from its habitual attitude of 
amiability, at the risk of hurting the feelings 
of politicians who steal the livery of agricul¬ 
ture to serve their selfish ends, and of the ap¬ 
propriation-professors who share the spoil? 
Be careful! kind-hearted Brother Carman, 
for—according to your own picturesque show¬ 
ing—‘there’s a Hatch on.’ However, the car¬ 
toon is ‘a hit, a palpable hit,’ by a paper which 
during its nearly 39 years of life has done 
vastly more for farming than nine-tenths of 
all the land-grant colleges and experiment 
stations, whose chief business is underdrain- 
age of tax-payers. ” 
From the Farm Journal: “After the Editor 
has worked himself to death to make the 
Rural New-Yorker the best weekly agri¬ 
cultural paper in the world, it will not warm 
his kindly heart to say that he succeeded;— 
and so we say it now.” 
FULL AS A TICK. 
Mr. Miller, in the Husbandman, refers to 
the fact that recent experiments made by the 
Agricultural College of Michigan, showed 
that the Holstein calves made the largest 
average gain, on the least quantity of food in 
a given time, of all standard breeds, excelling 
even the Short-horns, the Galoways and the 
•Herefords. The more the good qualities of 
this breed of cattle are known the better they 
are appreciated. 
Prof, I. P, Robert^, pt a farmers’ in¬ 
stitute, speaking of ensilage, said that the 
latest views regarding it called for silos about 
twice as long as wide, with a division making 
two squares. He advises that we put abr>ut 
four feet of the corn into one square on one 
day,and the next four feet into the other, and 
thus continue until both are full. Leave the 
two portions uncovered until the silage shows 
a heat of from 120 to 140 degrees. Then lay on 
building paper and cover this with matched 
boards and place thereon light weights. This 
reduces the cost and bother of a silo to a min¬ 
imum. Mr. Brown said that his wooden silo 
holds 90 tons and cost him about §150. The 
walls of the silo are alternately boards and 
building paper. The inside is lined with nar¬ 
row matched boards, and the silo is thus 
practically air-tight. He uses a close cover 
without any pressure . 
In a bulletin just issued by the University 
of Minnesota (St. Anthony Park. Ramsey t'o.) 
is an account of how the Russian so-called 
iron-clad apple trees withstood last winter. 
Of 65 varieties noted, not one started from 
terminal buds in the spring. The situation of 
the orchard is a trying one,' so that those 
which killed-back one inch or less in ordinary 
situations might be presumed to be hardy. A 
list is given. The station has about 3,000 
young Russian trees, two or three years old, 
which will be distributed next spring in small 
quantities for trial to societies and individ¬ 
uals in each county of the State. 
The five years of experience with Alfalfa 
at the N. Y. Ag. Ex. Station shows that it 
will thrive there and yield a large crop, es 
pecially in dry weather.•_ 
A conclusion arrived at by the above 
station is that farmers need not hesitate to 
sow barley or oats in late winter or early 
spring on land upon which fall-sown crops 
have failed. 
The London Garden says that the public 
are to blame for causing nurserymen to issue 
“fat” catalogues and to grow a hundred kinds 
where they ought to have a well-grown stocK 
of 25 kinds.... .. 
It is a mistake, says the enterprising Breed¬ 
er’s Gazette, to suppose that the grades, as a 
rule, will ever surpass for any purpose the 
breeds to which they owe their improvement. 
The nearer they approach such breeds in 
character the better cattle they will prove to 
be, but generally they fall somewhat below 
the standard of the pure breeds. 
The tendency upon the part of unimproved 
cattle—and upon this fact their inferiority 
largely depends—is to deposit on the outside 
of the carcass and around the kidneys nearly 
all the fat they are capable of accumulating, 
and very iittle of it among the lean tissues... 
The Gazette says that the breeding of grades 
is to be encouraged, inasmuch as the greater 
proportion of the best beef is supplied from 
this source, and the demand for it could be 
supplied from no other. But satisfactory as 
the farmer may find them, both as regards 
profitable feeding and the supply of first-class 
beef, we can but feel that he would find pure- 
breds even more satisfactory in both respects 
if the commercial conditions were such that 
he could stock his farm with them at equal 
cost.. 
The Rural New-Yorker, in reply to in¬ 
quiries, would say that it does not believe that 
the so-called Japan Clover will prove desirable 
or even hardy north of Virginia, and that for 
the South there are far more valuable forage 
plants.... 
Many believe that corn has a higher nutri¬ 
tive value if cut when the grain is well form¬ 
ed. Dr. Collier has made more than a hun¬ 
dred analyses of corn fodder in all stages of 
growth, which prove that the fodder actually 
increases in nutritive value until the ears are 
ripe... 
Col, Curtis has never seen a hog killed 
reared on corn exclusively unless the vital 
organs were imperfectly developed or more or 
less diseased. 
Farmer Reall is designated by the O. C. 
Farmer as the cheekiest man in America. 
The N. Y. Tribune insists upon “codlin” as 
the proper name of the insect, Carpocapsa 
pomonella, citing such good authorities as 
Professors A. J. Cook and J. H. Comstock in 
support of its use. The R. N.-Y. does not set 
itself up as any authority on entomological 
nomenclature. But it would respectfully sub¬ 
mit that “coddling” does not necessarily mean 
the act of coddling in the sense of making 
much of. Webster suggests that it is derived 
from the Latin coquere signifying to cook 
or bake, and this is in effect what the apple 
worm does to the apple. Now the word “cod- 
lin” signifies simply an immature apple, i, e, 
when “it is almost an apple.” The word cod¬ 
ling signifies the same thing as well as “a 
young cod.” The word “Coddling,” there, 
fore, implies a baked, cooked or imperfect 
apple, while codlin implies merely g young, 
immature apple. 
The Charles Dqwijiog Potato now offered 
