4888 
THE RURAL J4EW-YORKER. 
634 
harvested. The total product is valued at 
$1,500,000, but varies somewhat with the 
season. The value of the land has increased 
from $15 to $400 per acre. The land is drained 
by open ditches dug parallel. In dry seasons 
these have dams thrown across them to pre¬ 
vent the escape of the water. Treated in this 
way the land retains plenty of moisture 
and is in no need of costly irrigation. 
The soil is plowed as early in the spring 
as the weather will admit. Before plowing 
the ground is well covered with barn manure, 
which has brought better returns for the money 
invested than any other fertilizer which has 
thus far been tried. Wood ashes and the 
various commercial fertilizers have been used, 
but not with satisfactory results. 
FERTILISATION AND CULTURE. 
The manure costs from 50 cents per one- 
horse load to $1 per load. It is hauled out and 
thoroughly composted before it is used. In 
preparing the land the horses have to be pro¬ 
vided with large, flat shoes made of iron or 
wood, to prevent their sinking into the muck 
which varies in depth from a few inches to 
five and six feet, and is made up of decayed 
vegetable matter, mostly grass, weeds and 
roots. The principal varieties grown are the 
Golden Dwarf, White Plume and Perfection 
Heartwell. 
For early plants the seed is sown in March 
in the green-house or hot-beds, and transplant¬ 
ed in the open fields as soon as the ground caD 
be worked. For late plants, the seed is sown 
in narrow plots as soon as the frost is out of 
the ground and also later in the season, as oc¬ 
casion demands. For the first crop the plants 
are transplanted four inches apart in rows six 
feet apart. It is then cultivated and kept 
clean by mowing and weeding. From six to 
nine weeks later another row is planted in the 
center between the first rows. The first plant¬ 
ing matures during the latter part of June and 
July. It is then taken up and another plant¬ 
ed in its place. 
BLEACHING. 
Most of the celery is now bleached by set¬ 
ting up boards 10 to 12 inches wide, edgewise 
along both sides of the row. They are held 
in position by short blocks with notches sawed 
to fit the boards and placed across the top. 
Earth is then pulled against the lower edge of 
the boards to prevent the admission of light. 
The old method of drawing the dirt up against 
the celery, or “hilling,” as it is called, is still 
practical by a few, but has given way in most 
cases to the boards which are much easier to 
handle and cheaper. The boards if properly 
taken care of can be used for several years. 
Celery bleached with boards always escapes 
rust in a wet season, while earth-bleached 
celery is very much affected,especially during 
warm, wet weather. The process of bleach¬ 
ing occupies from two to five weeks. When 
bleached, it is dug with a common spade and 
trimmed. In trimming all the unbleached 
leaves are removed and the roots cut off; It is 
then washed and tied into bunches of a dozen 
stalks each. For shipment these are packed 
in wooden boxes containing from half a dozen 
to two or three dozen bunches. 
MARKETING. 
The first two crops are usually shipped as 
soon as they are ready for the market, and 
only a part of the last crop is stored for 
winter shipping. It is stored in trenches a 
foot wide and 16 to 18 inches deep, with the 
roots down, and covered with earth, as 
cabbages are stored in a trench. If the 
trench is too wide, the celery is more liable to 
heat and rot. 
A few of the larger growers place their 
celery directly upon the market. These, of 
course, make the maximum profit; but most of 
the growers sell to shippers, who furnish their 
own boxes and do their own packing. One 
can get some idea of the amount of celery 
handled from the shipments by express. 
There are three express companies operating 
here, each of which handles from 10 to 25 tons 
daily during the season. Their shipments ex¬ 
tend to every State and Territory in the Union, 
as well as to Canada and Mexico. t. d. h. 
Qoxzman, 
THE HACKNEY HORSE. 
The English hackney horse is a very useful 
general-purpose roadster either under tho 
saddle or in harness, at the covert, on the 
road or in the park. He usually has a good 
deal of Thoroughbred blood, being often the 
produce of a mare designed to breed a first- 
class hunter; but the offspring turning out unfit 
for the purpose intended the breeder is obliged 
to sell the animal as a^ hackney. Hackneys 
vary considerably in size, form and build 
according to the purpose for which they are 
particularly used. The characteristics of a 
good average hackney, however, are as fol¬ 
lows: He must be about 15 hands high, com¬ 
pactly and strongly built, with fore and hind 
parts well muscled. He should be short in 
the back and well coupled. He should have a 
deep, wide chest so that the lungs may have 
free play. His head should be light and his 
neck carried well up. His limbs should be 
clean and bony with somewhat oblique 
pasterns. Excellent feet and legs are indis¬ 
pensable to stand the beating on hard roads 
on which he often travels at the rate of a 
dozen miles an hour. His movements should 
be quick and springy. He should be good- 
tempered and easily controlled so as to be safe 
either under saddle or in harness. An excellent 
specimen of the class is shown in Linnaeus at 
Fig. 318. 
In England the Hackney aud Hunter are 
considered cognate classes, and are generally 
exhibited together. The Hackney Horse So¬ 
ciety has been established now for about half 
a dozen years, having been established to im¬ 
prove the race and to promote the breeding of 
hackneys, roadsters, cobs and pouies; to com¬ 
pile and publish a stud book of such horses, 
and to exhibit them at shows and offer prizes 
in competition. Volume I of the stud-book 
was published in June, 1884, and contained the 
pedigrees of 948 stallions bred in England 
since 1755, and a historical introduction of 
107 pages. Since then four other volumes 
have been issued, the last in March. There is 
no doubt but that a race of hackney horses, 
equally good and easy travelers under the 
saddle or in harness, would pay well in this 
States farming that are inferior to his own, 
because for the best part of two centuries the 
Yankees have poked fun at him and his 
methods. 
I had these thoughts in mind dnring are- 
cent ride up the Chemung Valley in New 
York State. Perhaps a few car-window notes 
may be of interest. It would take me a good 
while to get used to life in this valley. The 
hills shoot up on either side. I should think it 
would be hard to raise boys here. They must 
be continually wondering what there is on the 
other side of these great hills. We have hills 
enough in New Jersey, but they are different 
from these. Our hills somehow don’t give one 
such a feeling of isolation. Most of the hill¬ 
sides seemed to be doing duty as farming 
lands. Our Jersey pastures are poor enough 
by the side of these hills. I saw some excel¬ 
lent fields of corn and buckwheat on places 
so steep that our Jersey horses could hardly 
have worked there. I saw some swivel plows 
work here, and I must say that I want one 
myself. I noticed that almost every heavy 
wagon had a brake attachment. The crops 
did not seem entirely natural to me. I missed 
our sweet corn, Lima beans and melons. Rye 
is our best grain. It grows where wheat 
would starve to death, and the straw sells for 
more than the straw and grain of wheat put 
together. The great profit of rye culture seems 
to be found only at points within 40 miles of the 
great cities. Tobacco is a staple crop in this 
valley. For miles on either side of Elmira we 
passed through field after field of it. Most of 
it appeared to be in good condition, though 
some fields were very uneven. Most farms of 
any size seemed to have a tobacco barn, easily 
HACKNEY HORSE LINN/EUS. 
Re-engraved from the London Live-Stock Journal. 
country, especially in the Southern States, 
where so much buggy and wagon riding is 
done in summer time in every little town, and 
where so much use is made of the saddle in 
winter, owing to tho wretched nature of the 
roads. There is no section of the country 
where, in proportion to the population, the 
horse is so much used for travel under saddle 
and in harness as in the South. The mule is 
the beast of burden, the working animal, 
while the horse is for locomotion for business 
or pleasure, and the same animal is generally 
used for saddle and buggy. A horse that 
could travel well and easily in either way 
would be worth from $50 to $100 more than 
one suitable for one mode only. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
A jerseyman’s journey. 
It is quite a popular joke around New York 
tospeak of the United States and New Jersey 
as two separate nations. This joke probably 
comes from the feeling that existed in old 
times between .the Yankees and the Dutch. 
The former captured New York, but New 
Jersey proved as hard a nut to crack as Scot¬ 
land proved for the Romans. The Jersey man 
ought to make a good critic when he goes into 
America. He can speak freely about what he 
sees there. An American might not feel like 
criticising and calling attention to objection¬ 
able features, but the Jerseyman should be 
rather glad to point out the parts of the United 
New York. They have far better roads. Our 
roads do as much to keep Jersey out of the 
United States as any other feature. I saw no 
less than five differentroad machines exhibited 
at the Hornellsville fair and I am told by 
farmers that all through the country road 
machines are working a perfect revolution in 
tho public highways. When I came home and 
went bumping and jolting over our rough 
and stony roads I felt a little ashamed of 
Jersey, and rather wanted to bean American. 
On this trip a farmer told me that the N. Y. 
StateLegislature had passed a lawto encourage 
the placing of lamps along country roads. The 
man who provides a post and lamp and keeps 
his lamps “ trimmed and burning” during the 
year, gets a rebate of six days’ work on the 
road. In many country neighborhoods 
farmers take advantage of this offer and the 
consequence is that half a dozen or more bright 
lights are to be seen burning on every mile of 
road. Think how much neighborly feeling, 
comfort and convenience these lights can 
bring to any community! Such things are 
good. I wish we had them here. I was much 
interested in the stock I saw in this valley— 
particularly in the horses. I will speak about 
them next week. jerseymen. 
Wisconsin. 
Salem, Kenosha, Co.—This is a rich farming 
country. Last season we had a bad drought. 
This season we had too much rain, but we 
cut the largest crop of hay ever seen here; 
it went as high as three tons of good Timothy 
to the acre. Oats fell down and rusted and 
are about half a crop. Corn is late, but if 
frost holds off, it will be good. I liked the 
letter from “ Way back”. I’d like him to 
write some more. I recollect just such men 
and times as he describes. s. R. mck - 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
distinguishable from the other buildings by its 
ventilators. Many farmers that I know would 
never cultivate the tobacco plant. They con¬ 
sider it a “pernicious weed,” and therefore 
oppose its cultivation on moral grounds. The 
farmer in Dr. Hoskins’s story, who could grow 
philosophical over the loss of his tobacco barns 
because it gave him a chance to get out of the 
tobacco business is a type of such farmers. It 
is a hard matter to pick the right from such a 
question. Doubtless these tobacco growers 
will say that whisky can be mad9 from my 
rye, cider from my apples aud wine from my 
grapes. 
Jersey can beat this valley on potatoes, if I 
saw a fair average of the crop there. I saw 
some weedy fields that did me good, because I 
had supposed from the articles on clean tillage 
I read from farmers in New York State that 
Jersey is the only place where we have to mow 
the weeds to get at the potatoes. We do have 
to mow the weeds sometimes, I’ll admit. The 
rag-weed grows so big in the potatoes, some¬ 
times, that it resembles a thicket of scrub-oak. 
I saw a few fields in this valley that were just 
as bad, and right alongside of the railroad, 
too. The potato-bugs have evidently done a 
good deal of damage here. Several fields 
looked just about as ours did after the Cucum¬ 
ber Flea-beetle visited them. I fear this pest 
is more general than had been supposed. I 
notice that farmers in the valley raise consid¬ 
erable buckwheat. You see patches of it every¬ 
where. A good portion of it is said to be 
raised to plow under to kill out the wire- 
worm. I shall try that next year on a piece 
of ground that is badly infested. 
I will freely admit that in one respect our 
part of Jersey is 100 years behind this part of 
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GATHERING THE POTATO CROP. 
W. F. K., Clinton, La .—What is the best 
and cheapest way of gathering a potato crop ? 
Is any of the patented potato diggers a suc¬ 
cess ? 
ANSWERED BY T. B. TERRY. 
As we are right in the midst of the business 
I will tell our friend just how we do, or better, 
just what we did to day. After breakfast I 
sent the men to unload the two wagons, which 
had on them about 100 bushels, that had been 
drawn into the covered barn-yard the night 
before. While they were doing this, I har¬ 
nessed my team and hitched on to the digger, 
and transferred the potatoes to the surface of 
the ground at the rate of, perhaps, 75 bushels 
an hour. The other team soon brought out a 
load of empty boxes, and while one man drove 
through the field, another at the back end of 
the load set off a box every rod or so. All 
hands then fell to picking up for a time, until 
the boxes in the first load were nearly all 
filled. Then two men went down and changed 
wagons, bringing out the other one, which 
was filled with empty boxes. They passed 
through the field again, scattering empty 
boxes along, and on the return brought back 
a load of filled boxes, and emptied them into 
the basement of our barn. This kind of work 
was kept up, steadily ail day. When I got a 
little ahead with the digging I let my 
horses rest and went and helped on the wagon 
so another man could pick up. At night, 
both wagons were loaded full to give the men 
a job in the morning while we got a little the 
start with the digger. We put into the barn, 
in ten hours, 378 bushels. If there is any 
better or cheaper way of gathering Irish pota¬ 
toes I do not know of it. We have a cellar in 
our bank barn, for potatoes, 13 feet by 30 and 
10 feet deep. We filled that first, as full as 
we dared to at present, and then cleaned out a 
basement cattle stable 00 feet long, and have 
just about filled that to a depth of four feet. 
The last few hundred bushels will have to go 
into the house cellar. They will be safe in 
the barn until quite cold weather, before 
which time they will be sold. We are rushing 
them off as soon as ripe, in order to put the 
field in wheat. A letter in a late number of 
the Rural told all about potato diggers. 
Mine is giving excellent satisfaction this, year, 
