THE 
RURAU NEW-YORKER, 
. A National J ournal for Country and Suburban Home ■ . 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1888. 
Readers of the R. N.-Y.:—The calls 
for explanations of the Rural’s Trench 
System are greater than we have had for 
any other method, system or special 
topic which has been considered in these 
columns. We beg to state that the No¬ 
vember 3rd issue will tell the whole story 
and that specimens of this number will 
be sent, without charge, to any list of 
names with which our readers may furnish 
us.— Ed. R. N.-Y. 
We suspect that P. H. Jacobs is about 
right in regard to ventilating poultry houses. 
His common-sense article appears on page 
678. 
- ♦ ♦ -♦ > - - 
Yes, on a plot more than twice as large, 
we shall next season (D. Y.) again make 
the attempt to raise at the rate of over 700 
bushels of potatoes to the acre, agreeing 
to pay in case of failure from $50 to $100 
to any charity, if any other person will 
pay the like amount in case of our suc¬ 
cess. We shall not confine ourselves to 
the Rural seedlings but besides them 
plant half-a-dozen other varieties so that 
all may have an equal chance. The above 
offer is unconditional. If more than one 
individual should accept it, so much the 
better for the charily. 
If, e. g., 20 should accept it and the R. 
N.-Y. should be victorious, then there 
would be a fund of $2,000 for charitable 
purposes. 
-♦-*-» » ■> »- 
There is no better place in the wide world 
to bring up a family than on the farm, and 
there is no better class of citizens graduated 
into the business world than that which comes 
from the well conducted farmer's home .— 
Secretary Dye (page 677). 
-♦« •» «♦ ♦- 
“I think you came out nobly in the 
contest’—better than I expected.” 
WILMER .ATKINSON. 
What reasons can these men give-, in the 
world to come, for half starving their ani¬ 
mals in this land of 19,000,000 bushels of 
corn and hundreds of thousands of tons of 
bran, oil-meal and cotton-seed meal, and 
millons and millons of acres of land that 
ivould laugh with a hundred fold crop if 
only a little more brains and manure were 
■ used. —J. M. Drew—page 676. 
Read “A Jerseyman’s Jottings” on 
page 683. It tells of some of his impres¬ 
sions while seeing the potatoes of the 
“Contest” plot dug. 
- »«» ♦ - 
“One reason why really able and large- 
minded men hold themselves aloof from 
public affairs is because of the mediocrity 
they find in high places—the constant up- 
pushing of men who have neither merit nor 
modesty, but who have wonderful capacity 
and endurance for wriggling themselves 
through the chinks of society into places of 
notoriety, if not of power."— Mary Wager- 
Fisher —next week. 
-* »»-- 
You cannot well have green peas at 
this time. But you can have sweet, 
tender green corn. It is merely a question 
of ‘when you plant and what kinds. 
•-4 »♦ ♦ M » 
“ If I were a director of an experiment 
station ; I would take for my motto : ‘ Make 
things plain to the farmers.’I would keep it be¬ 
fore me that Iwas not working chiefly for men 
wh o understand science, but for men who need 
every aid to enable them to grasp clearly, the 
results of experimental t cork; and a dia¬ 
gram or picture often conveys more\informa¬ 
tion than pages of writing ".—See Mr. New¬ 
ton’s article on page 676. 
The Pocklington grape has yielded 
bountifully this year at the Rural 
Grounds. The bunches are large and 
perfect. One can only object to its foxy 
flavor. 
Some of the spectators seem to think they 
had about as good potatoes at home. Most 
of them raise their potatoes in hills, and for¬ 
get that these drills give about 10,000 more 
plants per acre. They see the potatoes come 
out of one place in the drill, and because one 
of their hills will yield more than that place, 
they say they can beat the yield. They for¬ 
get that the product of three of these places 
in the drill should be counted against their 
one hill, because their ' hills are three feet 
apart, while the seed-pieces are but one foot 
apart in the drills.—A Jerseyman’s Jot¬ 
tings, page 683. 
--^ 4 « ♦ > »♦»-- 
Lady Readers, we shall have an 
announcement for you in the Potato 
Special that we hope may please you—a 
proposition rather, which it is hoped 
many will be pleased to consider. 
If there is any fish that will thrive in 
muddy ponds better than the sucker, we 
don’t know what that fish is. And is 
not the flesh of the sucker as good as 
that of the carp? Tell us about it. 
It seems that Pres. T. T. Lyon (one of 
our best pomological authorities) agrees 
with Mr. J. T. Lovett that the Spring- 
field and the old Davison’s Thornless are 
the same. His article appears on page 
678. 
Some hills of the R. N.-Y. No. 3 (the 
seedling that defeated the Rural) ‘ did 
not yield a single tuber, large or small. 
There were two hills that were not so 
much injured by the Flea-beetle that 
yielded handsomely. 
The six varieties of the R. N.-Y. 
wheat, a few grains of which we were in 
hopes to send to all of our applicant sub¬ 
scribers next August, are growing 
thriftily. But the plots are small, and 
there is “many a slip ’twixt the cup and 
the lip,” occurs to us as we find many of 
the plants injured by the Hessian fly. 
One of the most rema-kable varieties 
of corn we have ever raised was sent to 
us by Mr. Arthur S. Core, Yalhalla, N. Y. 
It is, he says, a cross between the Rural 
Thoroughbred Flint and “Flour Corn.” 
It was planted at the Rural Grounds 
May 9, and matured September 10. We 
have before us an ear that measures pre¬ 
cisely 14 inches long, with 10 rows. In 
each row there are 62 large, broad, per¬ 
fectly shaped kernels. The rows are 
close together and straight. The kernels 
are nearly white and slightly dented. 
We tell you, Rural readers plant a 
‘‘Paragon” chestnut tree or so, if you 
live where chestnuts thrive. We believe 
this variety to be one of those rare steps 
in advance, that occur now and then, the 
one novelty in a hundred that is a down¬ 
right success. The nut is as sweet as our 
best American chestnuts and twice as large 
as the largest. They bear just as soon as 
they become established—often the second 
year after transplantation. The Japan 
chestnuts are variable. Though all bear 
large nuts, few bear nuts of a good 
quality. Whether the Paragon is a Ja¬ 
pan variety or not is unknown. We may 
be wrong in offering the above advice, 
but it is our belief that those who follow 
it will not have occasion to regret having 
done so. 
In these days of excitement over the 
wheat “corner” we hear numberless stories 
of men who make fortunes in an hour by 
buying and selling grain. They never 
handle this grain, they do nothing to¬ 
wards producing it; they are simply 
gamblers who manipulate prices and 
figures as gamblers of less savory reputa¬ 
tions manipulate cards. When we read 
of these quickly-made fortunes the ques¬ 
tion naturally comes, Who pays this 
money ? It must come from somewhere. 
Somebody worked to produce it. The 
men who gain it certainly do not earn it. 
The fact is that every one of these 
“corners” makes plainer and plainer the 
truth of the proposition which the Rural 
has printed time after time: 11 The farm¬ 
er does not get a fair share of the profits of 
the country." We feel like harping^and 
harping upon this theme until farmers 
realize the injustice of the present division 
of profits. We don’t care to assume the 
character of a chronic scold; we want 
fair and simple justice for all who toil. 
Some of the simplest things in life are 
the hardest to learn. Any man who 
knows how to think, realizes the fact 
that you can’t by any possibility add two 
and two and make six, and yet hundreds 
of intelligent people work on the prin¬ 
ciple that they can secure a $1,200 living 
out of $900 in cash or its equivalent. 
r I his can’t be done, and the man who pre¬ 
tends that it can, and won’t reduce the 
cost of his living to the size of his in¬ 
come, welds a chain around his neck that 
he never will be able to file away. There 
is too much falsehood in the lives of 
young Americans. The youDg men and 
women who can look poverty fairly and 
squarely in the face, are too few. We 
want more of the young men who dare to 
wear old clothes till they can pay cash 
for new ones, or who are willing to walk 
till they can afford to ride. We want 
more young women who are willing to do 
their own work till they can afford to 
pay somebody to do it and who will live 
uncomplainingly in one room till they 
can afford to furnish two. 
Give us more such men and women and 
we will guarantee the future of this coun¬ 
try. 
Tns good old proverb, “a stitch in 
time saves nine,” applies to the farm and 
the farmer even more than to affairs in 
general, because everything under the 
farmer’s care is in continual process of 
change. Many a farm is run down, and 
many a farmer worn old without securing 
competence, because of the neglected very 
little things—the want of a mere stitch or 
touch placed in time. A field lies in risk 
of being washed by heavy rain; or a 
fence-rail somewhere makes opportunity 
for breachy cattle to devastate a crop; or 
the crop carried through to harvest, is 
then injured or lost for want of timely 
or safe storage. Implements rust or rot 
or get broken because of not being housed 
in place, when their term of use ends. 
Buildings and their contents decay from 
want of a shingle, a board or a hinge that 
placed in time would prevent large loss. 
Animals, who cannot tell their wants or 
needs, often suffer bitterly. Yet the 
owner may be an estimable man, an ex¬ 
cellent citizen, and a hard worker. He 
may be a good father, too; if sensible of 
a fault in himself that habit has inveter- 
ated—he accustoms his children to the 
daily practice of the maxims “a place 
for everything and everything in its 
place” “A time for everything, and 
everything in time.” “Faithfulness to the 
animals whose care we have undertaken.” 
■- *-*-* - 
Mulching wheat is a subject that the 
R. N.-Y. has dwelt upon for years. Mr. 
Terry, on another page^ takes up the sub¬ 
ject in a plain, pleasing way that will 
commend itself to many farmers. Just 
exactly why mulching has such a telling 
effect is not quite plain. The fact itself 
is to the R. N.-Y. as plain as a pike-staff. 
All of our readers will remember the 
lively discussion which our statement of 
Mr. Bogert’s trial, some three years ago, 
called forth. The case was a very strik¬ 
ing one. When wheat is planted , one 
kernel a foot apart each way, the only 
method of carrying it through the winter 
without loss, is by mulching. And this 
we do after the surface soil is frozen. 
Wheat, treated in this way, starts more 
vigorously in the spring, “stools” more 
and yields a heavier crop of grain than 
wheat not mulched. Our readers have 
only to mulch a small plot in order to see 
if there is really the difference which 
from some five years of trial we are dis¬ 
posed to place to the credit side of 
mulching. 
NOTICE THIS. 
W E have printed a little pamphlet 
giving in a brief and concise style 
the history of the potato contest and the 
result. Nothing could be better than this 
to interest new readers. We shall be 
glad to have our subscribers distribute 
these pamphlets. 
POTATO MANUAL. 
T his will be dated November 3d and 
will be, in many respects, the most 
complete and comprehensive Special 
Number we have ever issued. The illus¬ 
trations will be a special feature, showing, 
as they do, the successive stages in the 
development of the potato. Agents will 
want many extra copies of this paper, 
because it will advertise the Rural as 
nothing else will. 
GOLDEN CROSS WHEAT. 
T HE “Golden Cross” wheat is getting 
a great deal of free advertising in 
the columns of the farm press. We see 
the same picture and the same editorial 
tale in about half the farm papers of the 
country. “It was,” they say, “produced 
by crossing the Clawson on the Mediter¬ 
ranean. It has never been injured by the 
Hessian fly. The grain weighs 64 pounds 
to the measured bushel.” Other state¬ 
ments, incorrect upon the face of them, 
are made of this new wheat. The R. N.- 
Y. is trying it. We don’t expect that it 
will prove “Hessian-fly-proof”; we don’t 
expect it will out-yield all other varieties, 
or that the grain will weigh 64 pounds to 
the bushel. The illustration referred to 
as appearing in the papers shows a re¬ 
markable head of wheat, which we doubt 
if any of the farmers who sow this grain 
will ever reproduce. Golden Cross wheat 
may be an excellent variety. We hope it 
will prove so. We are merely objecting 
to the palpable absurdities of the claims 
made fora wheat that, being new, has not 
in all probability been so generally tested 
as to determine its value for general cul¬ 
tivation. We learn that this wheat orig¬ 
inated with one Mr. A. N. Jones of Le 
Roy, N. Y., and not, as the reader is lead 
to assume, with the firm who have so well 
succeeded in securing an illustrated simul¬ 
taneous editorial announcement in half of 
the so called agricultural papers of the 
country. We further learn that this 
wheat has been well tried in parts of Gen- 
essee Co., N. Y., and that it gives full 
satisfaction. Let us hear from Mr. 
Jones. 
BREVITIES. 
Effervescence. 
Read “Who gets the Melon”, on page 677 
Prepare to lend us your ear, ladies, in a 
week or so. 
A ll potato growers should read the R. N-Y. 
of Nov. 3rd. 
After the heavy frost the cows want grain 
If they ever do. 
The Taylor blackberry is President Lyon’s 
especial favorite. 
The probabilities are that flour will be con¬ 
siderably higher in price. 
Prof. Sanborn will discuss the question of 
grain-binding next week. 
When have oranges been higher, in this 
market, than they are now? 
What lawn trees will grass grow under, 
and what not? What kind of grass? 
Read Mr. Terry’s remarks about “Mulch¬ 
ing Wheat and Clover”, on page 676. 
Are you goiDg to leave a ventilator lube in 
the poultry house after what Mr. Jacobs says 
on page,678? 
Gentlemen of the Experiment Stations, 
make the names and figures of your tables fur¬ 
ther apart. Leave wider spaces. 
Mr. Newton makes a point about feeding 
frozen silage that is worth considering. If 
ice cold water is injurious, how aboutice-cold 
silage? 
An English correspondent on page 679, says 
that farmers in England must adopt Ameri¬ 
can implements and American farming meth¬ 
ods in order to keep up with the procession. 
This is a new idea, isn’t it? America leading 
England! 
The best account, by far, that we have 
seen of the results of the “contest” plot ap¬ 
peared in the New York Weekly World of 
October 3rd. Those of our readers who care 
to know about it will no doubt be furnished 
with that number upon application. 
Botanist Crozier, of the Iowa Experi¬ 
ment Station, writes as follows: “How about 
the stories of growing mammoth squashes and 
pumpkins by feeding them with milk through 
the leaf or stem ? Trials at the Iowa Experi¬ 
ment Station this year proved that very 
little, if any, milk was absorbed in that way.” 
Young man, here is a verse for your espec¬ 
ial benefit. We could write a book with Jess 
sense to it. 
One day at a time! Tis the whole of life; 
All sorrow, all joy, are measured therein ; 
The bound of our purpose, our noblest strife 
The'one only countersign sure to win! 
According to the N. E. Homestead of Sep¬ 
tember 29th the old Massachusetts Ploughman 
has been purchased by the editor of the N. E. 
Farmer, who “will unite it with his journal.” 
According to the Massachusetts Ploughman 
of September 29th, it will continue to be pub¬ 
lished undeF the management of Linus Darl¬ 
ing. 
A Mississippi subscriber,'writes'asMollows: 
“I never order anything found in your adver¬ 
tisements without naming the R. N.-Y.’’.This 
shows that our friend is a courteous and 
business-like man. He is ready to do the 
Rural a good turn and he knows how to. get 
prompt and reliable information about the 
articles he orders. 
