ISO 
1n£ Mel WRKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Home . 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1888. 
Another “Special” next week. 
The Rural’s Farmers’ Club takes an 
extra long session this week. 
A continuation of our catalogue 
notices will be found on page 157. 
Again, for the third time, friends, we 
respectfully warn you not to use imported 
potatoes for seed. We have tried foreign 
seed repeatedly, and always with the re¬ 
sult of smaller crops. 
Spring is the time to feed plants nitro¬ 
gen in a soluble form. You may spread 
farm manure in the fall, but ammonium 
salts or nitrates should be applied in the 
spring. For corn we prefer to spread the 
nitrate after the plants are up. 
We should be pleased to have a set of 
our cartoons in the barn or carriage house 
of every farmer in the country. They 
are good pictures to set people to think¬ 
ing. We have a full supply and will 
gladly send without charge a set to all 
who apply. 
■ - 
We have raised potatoes in half-barrels 
of sand, watering them as often as needed 
and giving them chemical fertilizers only. 
The tubers were perfect in shape and per¬ 
fectly free from any blemish. If scab is 
caused by a fungus, we might look for it 
in sand as well as in soil culture. 
The Rural New-Yorker’s wager that 
it trill raise at the rate of over 700 bushels 
of potatoes per acre next season has been ac¬ 
cepted by one of the best known and most 
popular editors in America , the money, of 
course , to be devoted to some charity. 
Four years or more ago we bagged 
tomatoes. They were so delicate in color, 
so very smooth and perfect that members 
of the household did not, upon first seeing 
them, know what they were. Now we 
hear of perfect specimens of pears and 
plums raised in this way. It would not 
pay in a money sense, to do such work, 
but it might well serve to delight and 
instruct the little folks. 
Either the Inter-Ocean, of Chicago, or 
the Free Press, of Detroit, with the Ru¬ 
ral, one year, for only $2.50. The New 
York World and either the History of 
England or History of the United States 
and the R. N.-Y., $2.60, which includes 
postage on the book chosen. The Cour¬ 
ier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.) and the R. 
N.-Y. one year for $2.75. Subsci'ipttions 
sent to this office will be forwarded at once. 
Send to those papers for specimens if de¬ 
sired. 
Professor Wm. Saunders, of the Cen¬ 
tral Experiment Farm, of Ottawa, Cana¬ 
da, replies to our inquiries in regard to 
his hybrids between raspberries and black¬ 
berries, as follows: “I was away from 
home the greater part of last summer, and 
only saw the hybrids two or three times. 
They were removed from London to Ot¬ 
tawa in the spring, which, of course, 
checked their growth. None of the plants 
show any great vigor, but the following 
were alive at the close of the season, and 
had made a fair or medium growth: 
Four plants of Cuthbert fertilized with 
the Wilson Blackberry; ore plant of 
Cuthbert fertilized with the Snyder, and 
four plants of the Gregg fertilized with 
the Snyder.” Professor Saunders also has 
some 45 crosses between the red and 
blackcap raspberries. Many of them are 
strong growers, and some had borne fine 
fruit. Success to our Canada friend! 
Commissioner Colman is of the opion- 
ion that the proposed Palmer bill for the 
suppression of pleuro-pneumonia, instead 
of improving the present legislation in 
the matter, would, in reality, destroy all 
expectations of effective work. As might 
be inferred from its origin, it is framed a 
great deal more in the interests of cattle 
dealers than of cattle raisers. As the 
Commissioner forcibly points out, while 
it provides for quarantining infested local¬ 
ities, no punishment whatever is provided 
for violation of the quarantine. Several 
of the States have enacted penalties for such 
offences; but the bill takes no advantage 
of such legislation. It provides that no 
animal shall be killed without the consent 
of the owner, enacting that all infested 
beasts shall be rigidly quarantined, yet it 
provides no means for the enforcement of 
the quarantine. Instead of being an ex¬ 
cellent measure for the eradication of the 
plague, it appears to be a forcible illustra¬ 
tion of “How not to do it.” Farmers 
should at once let their Congressmen 
know their opinions on the subject. No 
time should be lost, as the cattle dealers 
and the “oleo” interest, with plenty of 
funds at their disposal, are vigorously 
forcing their deceptive legislation. 
A crisis appears to be approaching in 
the affairs of Manitoba, and the feelings 
of the people there are still further exas¬ 
perated by the failure of the Government 
to make any reference to the condition of 
affairs the other day at the opening of 
Parliament at Ottawa. The Manitobans 
complain with much bitterness and some 
justice that their interests are being per¬ 
sistently sacrificed by the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment to those of Eastern manufactur¬ 
ers and of the Canadian Pacific Railroad 
monopoly. With a population of 150,- 
000, the Province last year produced a 
surplus of 13,000,000 bushels of wheat. 
For the transportation of this vast amount 
of grain as well as of all other agricul¬ 
tural products and of the vast live stock 
herds of the Northwest Territory the only 
means available is the Northern Pacific 
Railroad, to which the Government has, 
for a term of years, guaranteed a monop¬ 
oly of the business. The Manitobans 
might submit for a time to the high 
charges of the monopoly; but they can 
not and will not permit their business to 
be ruined by the inability of the road to 
do the vast business at its disposal. It is 
like the dog in the manger—it can’t do 
the business itself and won’t permit others 
to do it. With proper railroad facilities 
it is claimed, that 500,000 farmers would 
in a short time find happiness and prosperi¬ 
ty in the Province where now less than one- 
third of that number are in misery and 
distress. It is predicted that unless some 
remedy for the present depression is soon 
applied, there will be a large emigration 
of settlers from Manitoba to the United 
States, and advices from Minnesota and 
Dakota say this has already begun. 
Last Monday the United States Su¬ 
preme Court gave what, it is to be hoped, 
is its death blow to Green’s driven well 
patent, by denying the application of the 
patentee for a rehearing on the ground of 
an inadvertent admission of a lawyer 
during.the plea, which, it was claimed, 
was contrary to the evidence and fatal to 
the claims of the patentee. The court, 
after delivering an exhaustive opinion 
and review of the whole issue, unani¬ 
mously refused the request. There is 
still another case on the court calendar, 
but the opinion on Monday appears to 
cover the merits of the case, and it is 
likely that this vexatious litigation which, 
from first to last, has cost tens of thous¬ 
ands of dollars and lasted a quarter of a 
century, will now end. No patent case 
has ever been brought before the United 
States Courts wliich elicited such a vari¬ 
ety of opinions, not only from different 
courts, but from the same court, and 
even from the same judges. A dozen or 
more of the U. S. Circuit and District 
Courts that have adjudicated in the mat¬ 
ter, have been nearly evenly divided for 
and against the validity of the patent. 
The Supreme Court has declared it valid 
once, and null and void from the com¬ 
mencement, twice; while Judge Blatch- 
ford, who wrote the two last opinions 
which were adverse to the patent, sus¬ 
tained its validity when he was a Circuit 
Judge. Truly, great is the uncertainty 
of the law even before the highest tribu¬ 
nals in the land! 
The agricultural interests of Great 
Britain, for a dozen years in a deplorable 
condition, are going from bad to worse 
every successive year, instead of improv¬ 
ing. Indeed, under the present tariff 
and land tenure laws improvement is now 
dispaired of. The question of agricul¬ 
tural depression is fast becoming of 
greater importance than even the Irish 
problem and is one with which the Govern¬ 
ment must inevitably deal in the near 
future. Under the present tariff, wheat. 
beef, mutton and, in fact, all the great 
food staples, come from other countries, 
where they can be produced cheaper, in 
such an abundance that no margin of 
profit is left for home-raised products. 
Indeed, it is charged that when the Eng¬ 
lish farmer has harvested his crops, he 
cannot get for them as much as they have 
cost him, owing to the disastrous nature 
of foreign competition. In a speech in 
the House of Commons, last Monday, 
Mr. Chapin said that while the losses of 
the British farmers in 1885 amounted to 
£45,000,000 or $225,000,000, last year 
they had run up to £50,000,000 or $250,- 
000,000. Large areas of land have gone 
out of cultivation and there has been a 
concurrent increase in cattle and sheep. 
Reliable estimates, we are told, show that 
700,000 persons are compulsorily idle 
owing to the paralysis of agriculture, 
while those who are employed have to 
work for greatly reduced wages. Mr. 
Chapin, in behalf of the dispairing farm¬ 
ers of the country, asked the Government 
what it would do in the matter? On the 
part of the Government, Lord John Man¬ 
ners said the Government had no remedy 
to propose; the only thing he could sug¬ 
gest was the establishment of a Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, whose head should 
have a seat in the Cabinet. Would such 
a measure be likely to remove the terrible 
depression from which British agricul¬ 
ture has been so long suffering? 
A HOOD INDORSEMENT OF THE RU¬ 
RAL’S METHOD OF RAISING POTA¬ 
TOES. 
T HE following letter has been received 
from Mr. Eli Minch, the horticul¬ 
tural editor of Farm and Garden: 
“In the Rural for February 18, I see in 
‘The Farmer’s Club’ notes a reference to 
yield of potatoes. I know slow-going farm¬ 
ers can hardly credit the Rural’s yields; 
but with the intelligence and manure the 
Rural uses there is no mistake in the 
matter. I am willing to back it in its 
statement that it can grow more than 700 
bushels per acre. I have profited often 
by its teachings, and this year on a special 
fertilized plot of two acres I grew 1,300 
measured bushels of potatoes—variety, 
the Silver Lake mentioned by the RuhAL. 
On two other acres 800 bushels, or at the 
rate, of 650 bushels per acre on the first field, 
and 400 bushels per acre on the other. 
On 22 acres I grew 6,864 bushels If 
other readers will read the Rural as I do, 
and try to understand its teachings, they 
will profit by its advice and find they 
can equal the Rural in successful potato 
culture.” 
AGAIN, THE R. N.-Y.’s METHOD OF 
RAISING POTATOES EXPLAINED IN 
RESPONSE TO MANY REQUESTS. 
u CJ everal potato raisers at Tom’s River 
want to see the Rural’s method of 
producing large crops of potatoes. 
Will the Rural give this in brief in its next 
issue, as they waut to begin planting them 
early in March. I think also I will try it, and 
one of my neighbors will, and probably some 
others near us. If we can raise 300 bushels 
er acre, or even 200 on our thin soil, we shall 
e highly gratified: now we don’t get over 75 
to 125 bushels per acre, and not often the lat¬ 
ter quantity. a. b. allen.” 
According to theR. N.-Y.’s experience, 
the largest crops of potatoes attainable 
can be raised only when (1) a sufficient 
quantity of suitable food is supplied; 
when (2) the plants are not seriously 
checked by dry weather, and 3 when 
they grow in a mellow soil. 
The tuber contains about 80 percent, of 
water. It forms, grows, and matures in a 
brief season, and this is true of late as 
well as of early potatoes. During this 
period it must be supplied with all needed 
moisture and food, or the crop will be 
cut short in- proportion to the deficiency. 
Every farmer may know this, but every 
farmer does not act upon it. It is the 
basis, as we believe, of the unparalleled 
yields of potatoes, which have been 
raised iD the specially-prepared potato 
plot of the Rural Grounds for at least 12 
consecutive years, each suceeding year, with 
few exceptions, giving larger yields than 
any preceding one. Probably this suc¬ 
cess in increase has been owing to the ac¬ 
cumulation of suitable food. 
This little plot, as has over and over 
again been stated, rarely suffers from 
drought and is well enough under¬ 
drained not to suffer from too much rain. 
The soil is a loam inclining rather towards 
clayey than sandy. It has received, so 
far as we can guess, at the rate of about 
100 tons of stable manure during the 12 
years, applied not at the rate of nine tons 
per year, but in two or three different 
lots, the greater part within the past three 
years, in the fall. It has also received lime, 
wood-ashes, kamit and “ potato fertil¬ 
izers,” the first three in inconsiderable 
quantities, the last at the rate of, say, 1,200 
pounds to the acre each year. 
Trenches are dug about 15 inches wide 
and four deep. The seed pieces are cut 
from medium-sized tubers, averaging 
from two to three eyes to the piece. The 
seed end is always thrown away. These 
pieces are placed in the bottom of the 
trenches exactly one foot apart—the 
trenches being three feet apart, measuring 
from the middle of each. These pieces 
are then barely covered with soil and the 
potato fertilizer is then evenly strewn in 
the trenches upon this soil which covers 
the seed pieces. The soil taken out is 
then hoed back into the trenches and so 
left without being compacted at all. As 
a guard against the wire-worm which, as 
we believe, causes the scab in this soil, 
powdered sulphur is scattered over the 
fertilizer. The cultivation is done by a 
hand Planet Cultivator, and hilling up is 
avoided. Beetles are killed by Paris-green 
and plaster—one pound of the former to 
a barrel of the latter thoroughly mixed. 
It is often asked, “What is the object 
of the trenches?” The Rural itself does 
not know, but its theoi'y is that the trenches 
conserve moisture and supply a yielding 
medium in which the tubers form and 
grow with little resistance, while the roots 
may penetrate at will the more compact 
soil between the trenches. Again the 
rain penetrates the trenches readily and is 
not shed to either side as in the old sys¬ 
tem of hilling-up. The water goes at 
once where it is most needed. 
In field culture the trench is formed by 
plowing a dead furrow or by using a 
shovel plow. A drag may be used to re¬ 
place the soil. 
We have been writing of this “Rural 
Method” of raising potatoes, as our read¬ 
ers must know, for a number of years; 
but the interest now manifested,as if it had 
been quietly accumulating all the time, 
bursts upon us in a way hitherto 
scarcely equaled, except by that shown in 
our method of raising the great corn crop 
of 1880, and for this reason we may be 
pardoned for again repeating the story, 
selecting Mr. Allen’s inquiry as a sample 
of the rest. 
BREVITIES. 
In many sections spring harrowing of wheat 
is becoming more and more popular. Good 
reports are made by those who have tried it. 
Have our readers found it beneficial? Now 
is the time to report. 
We hear of the Nixon Spraying Nozzle 
and the Climax Nozzle. Now are not they 
the same? We have the Climax Nozzle man¬ 
ufactured by the Nixon Nozzle Co. of Dayton 
O. The nozzle is stamped “Climax.” 
An oak plank or an iron harrow-tooth is 
harder than the rootlets of a tender plant. 
Nobody should doubt that, yet some farmers 
do not appear to believe, for they make the 
rootlets try to force their way through soil 
that should have been crushed and pulverized 
by the plank drag and harrow. If you don’t 
look after the plant while it is small, it won’t 
remember you when it grows up. 
Mayor George S. Varnell, of Mount 
Vernon, Illinois, which place was lately rav¬ 
aged by a cyclone, appeals for public aid in 
these words: “We need all the help possible, 
especially money. In the name of humanity 
we ask your aid.” City people are liberally 
responding to this appeal; shall country peo¬ 
ple be less generous? A contribution, however 
small, wdll help, and remember he doubles his 
gift who gives quickly. 
We have noticed that one effect of the great 
coal strike has been the cutting off of great 
areas of forest lands in the Eastern States. 
The price of coal has heretofore been so low 
that the wood, except in sections remote from 
the transportation lines, would hardly pay 
the expense of cutting. As a rule, this de¬ 
nuded woodland will not be cleared but will 
grow up again, possibly to modify the effect 
of the next great strike. 
The House Committee on Banking aud 
Currency favors the issue of from $20,000,000 
to $30,000,000 in fractional currency of the 
denominations of 5, 10, 25, and 50 cents. It is 
not intended that these shall take the place of 
small coins; but they will be distinctly useful 
in facilitating the sending of small sums by 
mail. It is hardly likely that any important 
legislation will occur during the present ses¬ 
sion of Congress. Indeed, it is seldom that 
important legislation distinguishes sessions ou 
the eve of a Presidential election, for “one 
party is afraid and the other dare not.” There 
is no reason, however, for delay in passing 
a bill providing for the issue of fractional 
currency. The business of the country and 
the convenience of the prople demand it. 
Farmer-miner Reall appears to be in hard 
luck After the exposure of the Tortilita hum¬ 
bug, he fled from this city to Boston, where 
as President of the Tortilita Company he 
hired a small suite of rooms on a third floor 
in Congress Street. Business doesn’t seem to 
have prospered even among the unsuspicious 
farmers, and so, the other day, the hard-heart¬ 
ed landlord turned him out, we are told, for 
non-payment of rent. The office furniture 
was bought, it appears, ou the installment 
plan, aud as it hadn’t been paid for it was 
carted off. In spite of the vast hoards that 
had already come out of those Arizona mines, 
and the still vaster hoards that were soon to 
come, the janitor and office boy complain 
that they have not been paid, and the ques¬ 
tion asked by many an investor is still un- 
. answered, “Where has the Tortilita gone?” 
