536 
THE HURAL NEW-YORKER. 
AUG. 44 
fm % Jjjxmttg. 
TALKS BY UNCLE MARK. 
I FREQUENTLY take my lunch at a “Coffee 
and Cake Saloon” th it is run in quite a family 
wav. A man, his wife, three sons and two 
daughters comprise the working force. The 
saloon is a little narrow room with a dozen or 
more little wooden tables in it. There are no 
table-cloths. The head of the family stands 
near the door. He makes change and does the 
carving. Behind him will be found a great 
niece of boiled beef, a boiled ham and a 
/yg dish of baked beaus. Under his counter 
f has a dozen or more loaves of bread. The 
three sons wait at the tables. The great dish 
at this “saloon” is beef and beans. This costs 
10 cents. When this order is given one of the 
sons will call out, “ Beef and !” Then their 
father cuts off a slice of the beef and puts it 
on a plate with a spoonful of the baked beans, 
two small slices of bread on a smaller plate 
and the son takes it to the one who ordered it. 
The mother and the girls wash the dishes and 
bake the cakes as they are ordered. Butter, 
sugar, salt and pepper are all on the tables. 
This is a working family. They evidently 
make money, because they all work and not a 
dollar goes out of the family for hired help. 
(Suppose a farm could be run on this principle 
—farming would pay pretty well, wouldn’t it? 
I always like to see these family partnerships. 
They indicate, to my mind, a good condition 
of affairs. You will always find a happy and 
prosperous home where they abound. 
This “ Coffee and Cake Saloon” is always 
cool and comfortable. There are great revolv¬ 
ing fans that revolve rapidly just above your 
head. These keep up a constant breeze. You 
are not melted; you can eat your lunch in 
comfort. We are a little ungrateful, 1 sup¬ 
pose. We tuke this cool breeze as a matter-of- 
course, without any thought of the one who 
works to produce it. One day the kitchen 
door was left open and i caught a glimpse of 
the boy who supplied the motive power. He 
was a little fellow—1 guess he must have boen 
the youngest child—the baby of the family. 
Ho was turning a wheel like a good fellow. 
Tnis made me think how many people 
have to work in the shadow. Our work 
doesn’t seem very valuable, perhaps, but it all 
counts in the grand total Of course it counts. 
All honest work counts. We may not be able 
to figure it all up in dollars and cents.but it all 
counts for good somewhere, and somebody 
appreciates it, just as wo appreciate the breeze 
produced by this boy’s turning. 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Mark You may think me 
too old to claim relationship to either you or 
the Cousins ; however, please allow me to in¬ 
quire if any of the Cousins know of a strong, 
healthy, intelligent boy, who is in need of a 
home, and whose character is pure and trust¬ 
worthy, and of a high moral tone, and one 
who is able and willing to do with his might 
what his hands find to do. If subsequent 
plans do not prevent, for such a boy I would 
willingly provide a home, food, clothing, 
good books and papers to read, etc. Situated 
as we are, he would have the privileges of a 
church and Sabbath-school near by, and the 
chance to attend the district school for at least 
three months during the year. 1 would like 
such a boy to take the management, under my 
direction, of six or seven acres of land. In 
such case he should be able to care for and 
manage a horse properly, to cultivate and care 
for a vineyard, asparagus patch and pear 
orchard, to make and care for a garden, to 
prepare and ship produce for market, etc. A 
wide-awake boy that does not already know 
how to do these things, can soon learn. If 
tnere is such a boy that ueeds such a place, I 
am interested in him, and would like to hear 
from him. Yours, Resp’ct, 
ALICE G. ROBERTS. 
New Monmouth, N. J. 
[There may be such a boy among our read¬ 
ers. 1 do not know of any just now. One 
who could do the work you outline could 
easily make more than his board and 
clothes.—u. m.] 
Dear Uncle Mark. —I have been reading 
the Cousins’ letteis, and think them very inter¬ 
esting. I would like to join the Y. H. 
Club. My parents have been taking the 
Rural for nearly a year, and like it very 
much. We live on a small farm about five 
miles from the city. We had a small cyclone 
here about a month ago; it did not hurt our 
farm but cuused great damage on the farms of 
Fulton Road, about a mile back of our farm, 
Uncle Mark, 1 am very sorry to say that my 
first letter found its way into your waste 
basket, but I hope this one will not be so un 
fortunate. carrie b. frazier. 
Mobile County, Ala. 
Dear Uncle Mark :—We hope this letter 
will have as good luck as our other one, as we 
wish to see it in print. We have all been 
hauling hay to-day. Our little sister Pearl, 
with us, rode the horses, and our brother 
hitched the rope to the doodle. Did you ever 
haul any hay that way ? Father and a couple 
of other men then stacked it. We have 20 acres 
of watermelons and one acre of muskinelons. 
If you are ever coming near here you must 
come and see us. We live about 6% miles 
from Vincennes. We thrashed our wheat 
last week. We had 400 bushels. 
Oh ! Uncle ! Our bird Is dead. 
We weep whene’er we go to bed. 
Have not you some tears to shed o’er his grave ? 
If you have. Just send them by mall; 
If you do we will spread them on Ills grave , 
He was such a good bird ; he did so well behave. 
Excuse this poetry, as it is the first we ever 
tried to make. What is getting the matter 
with the Cousins this summer ? Are they get¬ 
ting lazy this hot weather ? I think they need 
stirring up. Your twin nieces, 
SUSIE AND SADIE ALEXANDER. 
Dear Uncle Mark. —I never wrote a letter 
to you before. I live in Pennsylvania on the 
banks of the Monongahela river. I am eight 
years old. I have one sister and one brother; 
their names are Emma and Walter. We have 
a dog; his name is Carlo. He will bring the 
cows. Grandpa has a little calf; it is pretty. 
I have a china doll; its name is Blanche. 
Don’t you think that is a pretty name? I 
love to read the Cousins’ letters. We had a 
big river, it was nearly in our house. No 
lives lost near here, but lots of property lost. 
I am a member of a Temperance Society. I 
will close till I see if this one will be printed 
or not. Your little friend, 
Green County, Pa. mamie dilliner. 
<Ll)t ijfrtJsmmi. 
STOCK NOTES. 
Stallions no Hardier than Geldings. 
—It is a commonly accepted belief that stal¬ 
lions for severe and protracted work, or for 
short bursts requiring the exercise of great 
muscular energy, are vastly superior to geld¬ 
ings. But this is an erroneous opinion, for it 
has been demonstrated by more than ten years 
of actual trial in the omnibus service of Lon¬ 
don and Paris, that for ability to stand hard 
and fast work, the gelding is quite equal to 
the stallion and vice versa. 
The Milk of Farrow Cows.—Another 
common but wrong notion is that if 
farrow cows do not yield more milk than 
cows in calf, the milk is a great deal better. 
But just the contrary is the case. The milk 
of the one differs considerably from the other’s 
in the proportion of nutritive elements, but 
the milk of the cow in a state of gestation is 
ten per cent, richer than the other. This is 
because she cats more and digests more and 
really is in a more healthy condition than the 
farrow cow subject to periodical excitements 
of her organs of reproduction. 
Where Does the Extra Food of a 
“Scrub” Go? —When scrubs and blooded 
cows ere given the same ration, the one does 
not gain in weight or yield in milk half as 
much as the other, and yet both are cared for 
alike and alike are in perfect health. If a por¬ 
tion of the food more than is necessary to sus¬ 
tain a healthy individual state, goes to make 
fat and flesh and increase the milk yield in the 
full-blood, what becomes of the same extras in 
the scrubs? The digestion and assimilation 
are as good in one as in the other, but the sum 
of the results is widely divergent, unless the 
extra food of the scrub which is known to be 
hardy, goes to develop and sustain constitu¬ 
tional strength and nervous energy. If this 
be the fact, the extra food consumed by the 
scrub is not entirely wasted, but converted 
into qualities which may become in the high¬ 
est degree useful and valuable, when, after 
years of pampering and close breeding, we 
have to go back to the scrub for new blood 
and new energy. The Short-horn steer, com¬ 
pared with the Louisiana ox bred on the At. 
lackapas prairie, in the matter of full flesh and 
noble proportions,differs widely, the difference 
between the two being this, that one was 
bred for the butcher's block and the other for 
hard labor under a hot and humid climate. In 
both the food has been profitably em¬ 
ployed, or it Wwuld soon be shown that it had 
been wasted, were an attempt made to have 
the one do the duty o t the other. 
A Good Word for the Scrub.—I have 
often thought whether in our admiration of 
the blooded races, wo were not doing the 
scrubs injustice by neglecting them, and 
whether we were not sacrificing health and 
strength for fine proportion, flesh and fat. 
There are those who believe the common cows 
of the country will be found as profitable 
milkers in the long run, ns the high-priced, 
full-blooded; and instances in this neighbor¬ 
hood are not a few, where the woods’ hogs from 
the South, have been brought up to Cham¬ 
paign County cornfields, to be fed and fat¬ 
tened, and has returned larger profits to the 
owners than full-blood Berksbires and Poland- 
Chinas. If in any race, it is in the hog that 
the breeding for fat and flesh and fine propor¬ 
tions has been carried to excess. His origi¬ 
nal constitutional vigor and nerve force have 
been so successfully transferred to create the 
packer’s ideal lard hog, that nothing is left to 
resist disease, and when attacked ho rarely re¬ 
covers. This weakened condition explains 
why it is what is called the “hog cholera” as¬ 
sumes so many forms, and why an epizootic 
will enter a herd and often take every individ¬ 
ual having the same antecedents, while in 
other instances, the victims are selected and 
some are taken and others left, but with the 
same respect to previous breeding, keep and 
constitution. Yes, the improved Berkshire and 
Foland-China—the true lard hogs—have little 
more vitality than an earth-worm and little 
more blood than a turnip, and it is time for 
breeders to go back to the scrub for a renewal 
of the lease of life and for qualities that will 
carry him over the accidents common to large 
breeding and feeding farms and extensive 
ranches. 
Great Increase of Horse-Breeding in 
the West. —No kind of stock in the grass, corn 
and cattle counties of the prairie States, is in¬ 
creasing at half the rate of horses. Bands of 
heavy-weight mares, and colts of all ages, to¬ 
gether with bands of common stock, with a 
less number of trotting, coach and Thorough¬ 
breds, are nearly as common in pastures and 
meadows as herds of swine and bunches of 
cattle were ten years ago, and in many coun¬ 
tries still are. And, by the way, the propor¬ 
tion of colts to dams is this year double what 
This, cannot be done unless they can be kept 
from the strawberry bed and flower garden 
by a portable or other form of fence. 
The next best thing to a portable fence is a 
portable hen-house. It can be easily made. 
Such houses are usually placed upon skids and 
drawn from lot to lot by the team. A flock 
of poultry can be fattened upon the grain 
fields or among the corn stalks late in the fall. 
EDUCATION OF FARMERS. 
F. K. MORELAND. 
The higher rank in agriculture can be reach¬ 
ed only by education. No accident of birth, 
wealth or combination of fortuitous circum¬ 
stances can serve as a substitute for the lack 
of an agricultural education. Any increase 
of knowledge available in this industry is of 
importance on account of the numbers of peo¬ 
ple who may be benefited by such knowledge. 
A very slight increase in education, refine¬ 
ment and in Agricultural knowledge, when 
made general to the whole class, represents a 
great deal of good to the people of the coun- 
Hood’s Sarsaparilla 
This successful medicine is a carefully-prepared 
extract of the best remedies of the vegetable 
kingdom known to medical science as Alteratives, 
Blood Purifiers, Diuretics, and Tonics, such as 
Sarsaparilla, Yellow Dock, Stillingia, Dandelion, 
Juniper Berries, Mandrake, Wild Cherry Bark 
and other selected roots, barks and herbs. A 
medicine, like anything else, can be fairly judged 
only by its results. We point with satisfaction to 
the glorious record Hood’s Sarsaparilla has en¬ 
tered for itself upon the hearts of thousands of 
people who havo personally or indirectly been 
relieved of terrible suffering which all other 
remedies failed to reach. Sold by all druggists. 
$1; six for #5. Made only by C. 1. HOOD & CO., 
Apothecaries, Lowell, Mass. 
the previous average had been, because a rela¬ 
tively small per cent, of mares failed to breed. 
After wet and hot autumns, as in 1881, the 
percentage of failures to breed amounted to 
nearly 80, but after such dry summers and 
winters as ’87 and ’88, the percentage is the 
other way. These two conditions are sup¬ 
posed to be due, the first to the fungus devel¬ 
oped on the grain, hay and straw, and the 
second to the almost complete absence of 
these disturbing causes. B. f. Johnson. 
THE LEMON GREENING APPLE. 
Mr. F. W. Whitney, of Worcester County, 
Massachusetts, under date of June 18, sent us 
a box of specimen cooking apples for trial, 
the product of a variety called the Lemon 
Greening. The fruit is used for pies, and 
when picked is of a dark-green color, but 
turns to a lemon-yellow in the spring. The 
box was openod June 24 and the apples found 
to be in good order. This variety is certain 
ly a fine keeper and wo should say would be 
as valuable for cooking purposes as any we 
know of at this season. Earlier, others aro to 
be preferred. 
A GOOD WORD FOR TnE KIEFER PEAR. 
The Kiefer standard pear is the best acquisi¬ 
tion to our pear list that has been made for 
some time. I have always favored dwarf 
pear trees on account of their certainty of 
bearing and hardihood. But here we have in 
the Kiefer, grown as a standard, the earliness 
of the pear on the quince root, and the dwarf 
hardihood. Some do not like its flavor. I do 
not like it so well as that of the Sockel or 
Winter Nelis; but I think it is as pleasant as 
that of the Louise Bonne, or even of the old 
Bartlett, and its reported sales surely place it 
among the profitable varieties to plant for 
market. In 188(5 I first planted Kiefers. 
They grew well and ripened their wood 
thoroughly. They bore fruit last year, oue 
tree ripening in October six specimens of line 
fruit of medium size and a rich golden color 
tinged with a slight blush of red on the sunny 
side, and notwithstanding its ripening its crop, 
it made as much growth of good wood as the 
Bartlett standing hard by and bearing no 
fruit. I shall plant more Kiefers. a. c. b. 
Rockville, Ind. 
A fortune awaits the patentee of a good 
portable poultry fence. It could bo used to 
advantage on almost every farm. Nothing 
kills weeds more effectually than to let the 
poultry have free range of the garden in the 
fall or as soon as the seeds begin to mature. 
IOO Doses One Dollar 
NEW CIBER MACHINERY. 
llllilJANIM I>I X NITFACTIJRI NG CORF., 
HIGUANUM, CONN. 
Waukhou.sk: 88 So. Market Street, Boston, Mass. 
Field Rollers. 
A11 sizes and weights 
for one and two 
horses. 
Garden and Lawn Rollers, 
Stump and Rock Extractors, 
Root and Brush Pullers, etc. 
Made by AMES PLOW COMPANY, 
BOSTON and NEW YORK. 
Send for circulars and catalogue. 
THIS IH YOUR CHANGE. 
' We want ail agent In every town to fell our Ideal 
Faria Gate Hinge. Write for elreulur. Sample 
sent on receipt of #1.00. 
C. A WKYIIIJRN COMPANY, 
litil lllain Street, Rockford, III. 
KGGS marketed by the HOYT SYSTF.M 
bring 8. r > per cent, more value. It is making a revolu¬ 
tion In the Egg business. Farmers and Egg Collectors 
write. HOYT EGG PACKAGE CO., 
•it Murray Street, New York. 
*ajTpr| Agents for our new book, Protkc- 
HIY I CU. Tlofi ()r free Trade. containing 
articles by forty of the most Eminent Political 
Statesmen and economists on this question. Just 
the book for the times, and one that will have an im¬ 
mense sale. Price low. Park Pun. Co., Hartford, Ct. 
1 (i'Z Acre Farm, !&> 1 Vi50s 117 Acres, good build¬ 
ings, * I HOO t Farm Catalogues sent Free. 
11 F. CHAMBERS, Federalsburg, Md. 
OCMn TTII P C U TC Bor elegant Frame and 
OC Nil I t It util I O Photograph of either of 
the Presidential Candidates. A splendid thing. The 
great campaign seller. Agents wanted everywhere. 
UNIVERSAL FRAME CO.. 29 Murray St., New York 
Over 3.000,000 of them 
have been used. The 
most reliable and dur¬ 
able 1* A U for soro- 
neck horses or mules. 
Weather or wear has 
no effect on their cura¬ 
tive properties. Wo 
solicit a trial. For sale 
by all saddlery jobbers. 
Ask your harness- 
maker for them and 
insist on having the 251 NO I* A II and no other. 
25INC t'Ol.LA 1C FA I» CO., Hurliuimii, M Ich. 
dccdi rco nvee Aro th « best. 
rCCItLLdO VICO BoLuuvDRuauuTti, 
