MARCH 24 
THE RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
THE 
RURAL- NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Home ■ 
connected with the school system; but I night and continued without interruption 
until a higher appreciation of their value until Tuesday morning. It then partly 
and importance is spread among the peo- cleared up, but began again early in the 
Conducted by 
CLBKRT 8. C4.RMAN. 
■ Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1888. 
Ensilage, Road-Making, Insecticides, 
Hoses, Country vs. City Life, The Bright 
Side of Farming. These are among the 
Specials in preparation. 
pie, no great improvement can be reason¬ 
ably expected. 
Denmark has just issued an edict for¬ 
bidding importations of American ba¬ 
con and sundry other pork products, 
and, naturally enough, no small indigna¬ 
tion is aroused in the hog-producing 
regions of the West. What adds to the 
feeling is that insult is added to tne 
injury done to the American hog. Not 
only is his admission to the little king¬ 
dom embargoed, but it is sought to just 
ify the embargo on the ground that the 
noble animal is exceptionally liable to 
trichinse; whereas it has been demon¬ 
strated over and over again that European 
afternoon. It was from the start a full 
Northwestern snow blizzard. The wind 
was pitiless and the snow blinding, while 
the temperature ranged from nearly zero 
to 12 degrees above. The house at times 
shook as if in danger of being carried 
from its foundation; while several ever- 
through the other, bears the rate of post¬ 
age prevailing in the country of its ori¬ 
gin. In the United States the rate on 
plants, seeds and catalogues is 16 cents 
per pound, and packages must not weigh 
over four pounds. In Canada the rate is 
four cents per pound and five-pound pack¬ 
ages can be sent. Thus a five-pound 
package from Canada goes through the 
United States for 20 cents, while a four- 
We have given you cartoons showing h an d especially those of Germany, 
a cflo nf "farm llfp MflTlV rlfl.VP. I !■ n i . j i • _ r a „ J «hn 
the dark side of farm life. Many have 
written us that the thing was presented 
in a light too gloomy, too severe. In a 
few weeks we will give you a Bright Side 
cartoon—a pleasanter, far pleasanter thing 
to do. The bright side of farm life is 
brighter, in our view, than that of any 
other occupation whatever. 
are fully as badly infected, to say the 
least, and have caused many more deaths 
than can be attributed to the American 
beast. Ever since Bismarck sarcastically 
referred to American pork as “the poor 
man’s trichinse,” the European reputat’on 
of our “provision” exports has steadily 
suffered. In view of the insignificant 
size of King Christian’s dominions, the 
Now, parents, as the time for grafting effects of the new prohibition must be carried.to the ground and held there by 
is close at hand, take your youngsters and comparatively small on our trade, so that 1 the weight of snow above them, while 
green trees were destroyed as well by the I pound package sent direct costs 64 cents, 
weight of the snow as by the gale. All ”” ~ 
communication even with neighbors was 
cut off by the drifts of snow which ranged 
from four to 10 feet in hight, so that the 
inmates of the house were confined there 
from early Monday morning until Wed¬ 
nesday, when clearing weather enabled 
them to begin the work of communicating 
with the outer world. There is no living 
resident of that part of the country that 
remembers a storm of such severity or 
anything approaching it. It may be 
worth noting that all of the evergreen 
trees were carried over and held towards 
the Southeast, from five to fifteen degrees, 
depending upon their exposure to the 
storm, by the weight of snow and ice 
which accumulated heavily only on the 
leeward side. The lower branches were 
your wife, too, if need be, and show them 
how to graft an apple, pear, plum, rose 
or lilac. Do it. We assume that you 
want the children to love the farm. Then 
help them in those things which will in¬ 
terest and instruct them. Grafting, and, 
later, budding, are among those things. 
The storm delayed the mailing of last 
week’s Rural. Not an ounce of mail 
matter got out of the city for four days. 
We were all ready, but Uncle Sam found 
the blizzard too much for him. We can’t 
control the weather. When, once in 
half a century or so, we get a blast straight 
from the North Pole, we can only do our 
in the event of any retaliatory legislation, 
it is to be hoped that little Denmark will 
not be selected as our principal antago¬ 
nist. 
Birds kill insects and so they are the 
farmer’s friends. Cats kill rats and mice, 
and so they, too, are the farmer’s friends 
But they are especially fond of birds. 
There are multitudes of cats that are 
worthless as rat catchers; but who ever 
heard of a cat that would not lie in wait 
for a bird or catch one if it had the 
chance! Probably cats about farm homes 
kill more birds than any other live agency. 
They not only catch the old birds when 
the chance occurs, which is very often, 
but they destroy the young in their nests. 
Y"\ i • J ? 11 A XL ^ u a m a i *• /-I t V-* 1 /I n 
many of the higher branches, having no 
such resting place, were torn from the 
trunk. Of all the evergreen trees the 
Scotch and Austrian Pines suffered most. 
FRACTIONAL SILVER CERTIFICATES 
best and keep as good-natured as possible. 
We hope our readers can feel in the same _ . 
way. Philosophy is a very useful thing But, it will be said, there are birds which 
at such a time. It is worth cultivating. | are enemies to the farmer as well as cats 
—the English sparrow for example. Now 
how should we set to work to fix this to 
man’s entire satisfaction? He of course 
is the one great creature to be pleased. 
He has the right to cut and slash what¬ 
ever seems to stand in his way. The 
answer is ju9t as easy as it can be: Let 
the Hatch experiment people make it 
their early business to begin breeding a 
race of cats that shall ultimately confine 
their carnivorous propensities to killing 
rats and mice, and that shall care no more 
for a bird than for a potato beetle. Let 
them also start the work of breeding a 
of sparrows, etc. that will devour 
A friend who sends a very sensible 
and timely question for the Farmers’ 
Club, apologizes for doing so, and says 
' he is sorry to give us trouble. There is 
no reason why he should be so. Some of 
the best articles in the Rural are brought 
out by questions asked in this way. Our 
readers are generally intelligent and 
thoughtful farmers who ask questions 
immediately concerning their business. 
Whenever we feel that we can speak 
authoritatively upon the questions pro¬ 
pounded, we do so. Whenever we are in 
doubt, we refer them to the very highest 
authorities we can secure. In this way we 
get the benefit of keen and practical ques¬ 
tions, which may well set others to think¬ 
ing, and answers from those who are 
capable of putting the experiences of 
years into a few words. 
-♦ , ■■■■ — 
It is apparent that many farmers are 
preparing to go into the business of evap¬ 
orating sweet corn this season. Many 
very plausible statements as to the great 
profits of this industry have been pub¬ 
lished of late, chiefly by those who have 
seed or evaporators to sell. Last year the 
Rural investigated this matter carefully. 
We are satisfied that there is not enough 
of a demand for the evaporated corn to 
warrant much, if any, increase in the 
supply. In any event it will not pay far¬ 
mers to go into the business unless they 
have every' convenience for handling the 
product and can make it their chief em¬ 
ployment during the season. The far¬ 
mer with the variety of crops usually 
found on the farm has all he can do at the 
season when the corn must be evaporated, 
without studying evaporators. 
race 
only such insects and vermin as are ob¬ 
jectionable to the farmer and to all men 
and women in general. We regard this 
as both a highly original and a highly 
valuable suggestion and we trust the 
Hatch people will at an early day com¬ 
mence the work of its incubation. 
T he House Committee on Banking and 
Currency at Washington reported 
the following bill: 
‘ ‘Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 
Representatives of the United States of Amer¬ 
ica in Congress assembled, That the Secretary 
of the Treasury be, and hereby is, authorized 
and directed to issue silver certificates of the 
denominations of 25, 15 and 10 cents, in such 
form and design as he may determine, such 
certificates to be received, redeemed, paid, 
and re-issued in the same manner as silver 
certificates of larger denominations, and to 
be exchangeable for silver certificates of other 
denominations. And the Secretary of the 
Treasury is authorized and directed to make 
such regulations as may seem to him proper 
for distributing and redeeming the denomi¬ 
nations or silver certificates herein author¬ 
ized.” 
There is a very general demand for a 
paper currency of less denomination than 
one dollar. The issue of the proposed 
certificates would be of great service to 
those who send small sums of money 
through the mails. At present they are 
forced to buy a postal note or send stamps. 
Seedsmen, publishers and other retail busi¬ 
ness men are overrun with stamps which 
are not easily negotiable, and are easily 
lost and unhandy to keep. We hope the 
above bill will pass. All who are inter¬ 
ested in its passage can help the cause by 
writing a letter of appoval to their Con¬ 
gressmen. Do it at once. 
THE COTTAGE. 
Thus Canadian seedsmen have a great ad¬ 
vantage in supplying American customers, 
which American seedsmen living near the 
frontier partly overcome by a little inge¬ 
nuity. They ship their seeds by express 
to Canada, mail them there to their Amer¬ 
ican customers, and thus get the benefit 
of cheaper rates. James Vick, of Roch¬ 
ester, N. Y., has just made a large ship¬ 
ment of this kind, and sent a letter to the 
postal authorities at Washington, stating 
what he was doing, and showing that in 
his case Canada gets all the pay, and the 
United States does all the work. He sug¬ 
gests that an arrangement should be made 
whereby the packages could be mailed at 
Buffalo or some other point in this coun¬ 
try, Canadian postage stamps being put 
on the packages, so that the Canadian 
Government would not lose by the change, 
while the United States Government 
would receive the same compensation as 
at present—just nothing. This is a strong 
way of putting a bad case, which 
should be promptly amended. No re¬ 
lief is to be expected from the Gov¬ 
ernment in the absence of further legisla¬ 
tion. A despatch from Washington tells 
us that the Secretary of the Treasury has 
just ordered that all packages of plants, 
seeds and books coming from Canada 
through the mails must be turned over to 
the customs authorities, who will charge 
on them the regular import duties to 
which the various articles are liable. This 
step will doubtless put an end to the 
shipment of most of such goods to the 
Dominion to be distributed by mail from 
there to customers in the United States; 
but there will still remain certain articles 
which are not liable to duty, and which 
will therefore still be distributed in this 
way. On all Canadian and American 
goods of this kind sent into the United 
States from the Dominion Canada will 
still continue to receive all the pay. 
BREVITIES. 
4 4 ITT hy do you recommend the Cottage 
’W! 
It was in the midst of the worst storm 
that ever visited New 7 York and plagued 
the animals which he loved and protected 
that the kindly soul of Henry Bergh 
passed away last Monday morning from 
his home in Fifth Avenue, this city. He 
was boin here in 1823, and was the son 
of Christian Bergh, one of the wealthiest 
and most prominent shipbuilders of his I the quality is better—a little better 
time. Young Bergh studied law at Col- J rr ” ‘ 1 
umbia College, and then made an exten¬ 
sive trip in Europe, where he was ap¬ 
pointed Secretary to our Legation in Rus¬ 
sia, in 1861. After his return to this 
country he started, in 1864, a society to 
restrain brutality to dumb animals, and 
in the following year the Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was 
formed, and in 1868 the authority of ar¬ 
rest and prosecution was given it by the 
Legislature. It has done a vast deal of 
good in restraining brutality towards 
dumb animals here, and has been the 
model ftr similar institutions in 37 other 
States and in many foreign coun¬ 
tries, its constitution and general plan of 
, , , ,, , work being always closely followed. En- 
State, as a rule, makes full returns on thusiasts, however good their cause, are 
these points, the omissions ranging from always inclined to carry things to ex- 
10 to 50 per cent, as compared with the last tremes, and Henry Bergh was no excep- 
national census. The difficulty lies in 1 - - - 
the fact that the enumeration is made by 
assessors for taxing purposes, and hence 
there is a great deal of concealment and 
evasion by those who make the returns. 
The Boards of Agriculture of the various 
Statistician Dodge, of theDepartment 
of Agriculture, complains of the worth¬ 
lessness of the existing methods of col¬ 
lecting statistics of the number and value 
of farm animals, the amount of crops or 
anything else under State agency. No 
rule, makes full returns on 
tion to this rule, consequently he fre¬ 
quently incurred much hatred and abuse; 
but he always adhered persistently to the 
line of conduct which he thought most 
conducive to the success of the benevo- 
, _ , A ~ ■ lent object he had so much at heart, and 
States rely to a great extent upon the fig- wh en fie passed away he took with him 
ures thus presented; but, with the ex- re „ re t an( j esteem of all. 
ception of a reasonable approximation in 1 ° 
a very few States, the Department of Ag¬ 
riculture can place no reliance on asses¬ 
sors’ returns. He suggests that the duty 
of gathering these statistics should be 
The storm chronicled by the daily 
papers last week began in the country 
about the Rural Grounds during Sunday 
Grape when the Concord, which 
bears a larger bunch, and is as 
good in quality, thrives a's well?” So we 
are questioned by a correspondent. We 
answer, “For several reasons.” The Cot¬ 
tage is a hardier vine than the Concord; 
the leaves are larger, thicker and nearly, 
if not wholly, mildew-proof. The berries 
never mildew or rot at the Rural Grounds; 
than 
that of Concord. The berries have no 
more pulp, while the flesh between the 
pulp and the skin, which has been called 
“fat” with some appropriateness, is thick¬ 
er, giving the berry a nicer flavor, and a 
more meaty texture. Again, the berries 
hold to the stem better than Concords, 
and they are fully ripe before Concords 
are well colored—a difference of at least 
10 days in maturity. Finally the Cot¬ 
tage, while it bears a fair crop every year, 
never weakens itself by an overburden of 
fruit. These are our reasons for having 
advised that the Cottage be represented 
in every collection. It is one of those 
really good things which owes its grow¬ 
ing popularity to real worth, as, beyond 
the Rural’s persistent advocacy during 
the past eight years, it has had no one to 
blow its trumpet. But the Cottage and the 
Victoria, which also owes its fast-growing 
appreciation to the R. N.-Y., are bound 
to grow in favor from year to year, and 
to take the place of later and more lauded 
kinds that are really inferior to them. 
The Concord excels the Cottage in two 
respects, viz.: it bears a larger bunch 
and, in its best seasons, is far more pro¬ 
ductive. 
i ' -♦♦♦ 
CANADA GETS ALL THE PAY. 
Under the new postal treaty with Can- 
J ada, postal matter going from one country 
Uncle Mark talks about the storm, page 
208. 
Look out for the Rose Special, all ye ad¬ 
mirers of the perfect flower. 
The Cinnamon Vine and the Australian 
Millet advertisements still appear in various 
papers. 
Have any of our readers had any experience 
with Quack, Twitch or Rye Grass as a lawn 
grass? We mean Triticum or Agropyrum 
repens. 
“You tickle me and I’ll tickle you” is an 
understanding that the Rural abhors. It 
is well to tickle one another when the object 
is a laudable one. Too often the agreement 
is conceived in greed, meanness or fraud. 
Now is the time to see that surface drains 
and water-courses are as clear as possible. 
When this snow begins to melt it will go with 
a rush, and unless care is taken to dispose of 
the surplus water great damage will be 
wrought. A little work now at clearing up 
drains and gutters will save great damage 
later. 
Some of our contemporaries are now an¬ 
nouncing that the Mikado and Turner’s Hy¬ 
brid tomatoes are the same. Better late than 
never. Why don’t the seedsmen, all of them, 
tell their patrons the fact. Probably thou¬ 
sands of people buy both kinds, raise both 
kinds—to find that they are the same. Is this 
right, seedsmen? 
Suppose the straw of your wheat, rye and 
oats is weak so that the plants lodged year 
after year, what would you do? That is a 
trouble we are experiencing at the Rural 
Farm. We do not know of a remedy, but 
propose to sow ashes rather liberally, not for 
the potash, not for the phosphoric acid, but 
for the lime they contain. Will the ashes in¬ 
crease the strength of the straw? We do not 
know. We fancy—it is a mere fancy—that 
lime on our soil, which needs lime, will 
strengthen the straw and we prefer the lime 
of unleached ashes or leached ashes to that of 
shell or rock lime. This is a problem well 
worthy of the attention of our experiment 
stations: What substance applied to the soil 
will strengthen the straw of cereal crops? 
Major Henry A. Alvord has just been 
elected Director of the Maryland Agricultu¬ 
ral Experiment Station attached to the State 
Agricultural College at Baltimore, at a salary 
of $3,000 a year. He has also been chosen 
President of the college pro tem., without 
extra compensation. His election to both 
offices was unanimous. In case of the Major’s 
acceptance his term of office will begin on 
March 20 of this year. The State appropria¬ 
tion to the college has been limited to $5 
annually for several years; and the Major’s 
acceptance of the offices to which he has been 
elected will depend on an appropriation of at 
least $0,000 for the current year. Governor 
Jackson favors such an appropriation. It 
would be hard for the State to make a better 
selection for either of the offices for which 
Major Alvord has been chosen. 
