on the surface of the milk after it reached the 
consumer. 
5. The authorities will be likely to require 
pretty strong evidence that the above proposi¬ 
tions submitted are true before they will enter 
upon the work of compelling every owner of n 
cow to own and use a separator. For if milk for 
market requires the use of the separator for 
purification and health-promotive purposes, 
then all butter must be made from mechan¬ 
ically-separated cream, and all milk made 
into cheese must be submitted to the same pu¬ 
rifying process. What a harvest this would 
make for the manufacturers of separators ! 
Did “the authorities’' ever do as much for 
any other class of manufacturers—compel 
people by law to buy their machines ? It will 
probably be a long time before they will at¬ 
tempt to prevent the sale of unseparated milk. 
The effort is more likely to be to prevent the 
separation. Milk deprived of its cream lacks 
an important element of nutrition and aid to 
digestion. The trouble has been not so much 
to prevent the sale of diseased milk—although 
this in large cities is a serious evil—as to pre¬ 
vent the murder of the innocents by selling 
them skimmed milk for food. When “the 
authorities” begin the work of compelling 
everybody to use a separator, I want to be 
engaged in the business of manufacturing 
them. There will be “millions in it.” 
Chicago, Ills. 
A JERSEYMAN’S JOTTINGS. 
ABOUT “ CITY FARMERS.” 
We Jersey farmers come in contact with 
an element of competition that farmers in 
other parts of the country know nothing 
about. In almost every community near New 
York will be found one or more men who 
work in the city and try to run a farm at the 
same time. They have some office business 
that yields them a good income. They take a 
living out of this, and spend the rest at play¬ 
ing farmer. 
Such men locate among us for various rea¬ 
sons. Some of them spent their boyhood in 
the country, and now want to pass the even 
ing of life there. Some of them leave the city 
because they don’t care to bring up their chil¬ 
dren among bricks and stones. They want to 
surround a child’s early years with the 
purest influences they can command. That’s 
right. Others get a little money ahead and 
can’t trust themselves to handle it. They 
want to put it into some place where it can’t 
be got at, and where one will have to save and 
plan in order to hold on to it. After looking 
things over, they find that about the only 
place that will fill these conditions is a farm in 
New Jersey. They paydown what cash they 
have, and give a mortgage for the balance, 
and then go to work to try and pay for it. 
Another class of men believe that the day 
must come some time when every attractive 
spot in Northern New Jersey will have to be 
used for building lots and sites for hundsome 
residences. So they buy a Jersey 1 arm and 
live on it, patiently waiting for the boom to 
come. All these folks attempt to farm. We 
Jersey farmers who have no income but the 
one we dig out of the ground, have to 
compete with this class of farmers, whose 
farm produce is all clear gain to them. 
After al 1 , these farmers are harmless enough 
so far as competition goes. They never will 
raise enough to hurt us, because they violate 
two great principles of profitable agriculture 
that I have proved to myself a dozen times. 
1. Profitable farming is a business that re¬ 
quires a man’s whole time and thought. It 
takes about seven-eighths of all the energy and 
business that a man is possessed of to make a 
living on the ordinary Jersey farm. The dispo¬ 
sal of the other eighth determines the profit of 
farming. 2. It is safe to assume that the 
crops raised by a good majority of those who 
have to make a living at farming in any com¬ 
munity are about the most profitable that can 
be handled there. There may be some excep¬ 
tions to this, but as a rule it holds good. 
The city farmer is a very happy and 
sanguine agriculturist. He prepares to make 
a fortune every April, and concludes to post¬ 
pone it a year every September. We old 
farmers feel a little ashamed of our modest 
business every spring, our city friends figure 
out such wonderful profits. When the crops 
are gathered, however, we generally conclude 
that we will stick to the old style a little while 
longer. This thing goes on year after year so 
regularly that it would get monotonous to any 
other than a city farmer. He is always cheer¬ 
ful and enthusiastic; in fact, ho cheers up 
Jersey furmiug wonderfully. 
If a man wauts to prove to himself that 
farming is a business that requires one’s con¬ 
stant thought, he has but to watch this farm¬ 
ing at long range. The city man has all the 
work he can attend to at his office. In the 
spring he gets interested in his planting and 
stays away from his business all he can, to 
try and help the hired man put in the crop. 
After rushing things a week or so, he finds 
that his business is suffering, and he drops 
farming and lets things run as best they can. 
Left to himself, the hired man often does his 
best to make a crop, but he is hampered. Let 
him start out to work in the field and there 
comes a shrill female voice:—“Oh John, come 
and drive us to the station.” It is rarely that 
the man can put in three hours of good work 
without being called to work in the garden, 
run the lawn-mower or do some other job 
prompted by the fancy of one of the many 
bosses on the place. The result is the man 
can’t take care of half of the crop he puts in; 
the owner wonders why his farm doesn’t pay, 
the wife can’t see what John has done all 
summer and John himself grows discouraged 
and careless. Who fears such fanning? You 
can’t farm at a distance and make any money 
—there is mighty little to be made when you 
get as close to the farm as you can. A cripple, 
if his head was all right, could afford to pay a 
man to carry him about the farm to study 
economical methods of handling crops and 
stock. Why, it occurs to me that even the rye 
grows better for a little watching and exami¬ 
nation every Sunday afternoon. 
As to the second principle of successful 
agriculture that I spoke of, perhaps I can best 
illustrate the ideas of our long distance farm¬ 
ers by repeating some of the projects they 
have urged me to go into. I give the exact 
words of my advisers. They were ready to 
guarantee yi every instance that each project 
was simply an undeveloped fortune. If any of 
the Rural readers want to make a fortune, 
they may be able to dig one out of some of 
these schemes. I haven’t tried any of them. I 
think it must be that I don’t care to get rich. 
Some years ago I heard a man say that the 
good old text—“It is more blessed to give than 
to receive I” referred to only three things, viz.— 
kicks, medicine and advice. A study of my 
city-farmer neighbors goes far to convince me 
of the truth of this proposition. 
Raising Game Cocks. —These can be rais¬ 
ed as cheaply as any other chickens. Fan¬ 
ciers will pay 50 to S3 apiece for good roos¬ 
ters to sell to those who fight them. Raise 
1,000 each year and you take in over $2,500— 
almost all clear profit. 
Raise Capons. —You can buy young roos¬ 
ters in New York for 0 to 11 cents per pound; 
capouize them, and sell them in the spring for 
20 to 25 cents per pound. This is a profit of 
over 100 per cent. 
W inter Lame Mules. —Buy some broken, 
down mules m Jersey City about this time of 
the year, winter them on corn stalks and doc¬ 
tor them up. In the spring they will be fat 
and well and will sell for three times as much 
as you paid for them, while their feed will 
have cost nothing to speak of. 
Raise Mushrooms.— They sell for 75 cents 
per pound at certain seasons. What is to pre¬ 
vent a man from raising a ton every year? 
Breed Shetland Ponies.— They cost to 
raise about half as much as do large horses 
while they sell for more money. 
Money in Sweet Corn.— Plant 10 acres of 
sweet corn. Tuis will make, say, 50,000 hills: 
allow three ears to a hill and you have 150,000 
ears which at $1. per hundred makes $1,500: 
and one farmer and a hired man can take care 
of the crop and have lots of time for play. 
Big Money In Poultry.—A man writes to 
the agricultural paper that he made his hens 
pay a profit of $2 each. Then if you will keep 
5,000 hens you get a clear profit of $10,000 
every year. 
Raise Angora Goats. —These goats will 
live on old corn stalks and sticks and waste 
hay that the other stock will not touch. 
Most of the Mohair we now use is imported. 
It will sell for 50 per cent, above the price of 
wool and will cost about half as much to pro¬ 
duce. 
Raise Roses. —Roses have sold in the New 
York markets lor $1.00 each. Say arose bush 
will occupy a space two feet square and pro¬ 
duce 10 flowers during the season. In an or¬ 
dinary sitting-room, at this rate, one can 
make more than the “ordinary Jerseyman’ 
makes on his whole farm! 
Bull-frogs and Trout. —Dam up the brook 
and raise trout. Good trout will bring 80 
cents per pound at the high-toned hotels, and 
it will be a very poor man who cannot raise 
1,000 pounds in a small pond. Bull-frogs, too, 
can occupy the same pond. Frog’s legs are 
always in demand, and the body of the frog 
will be worth enough for fertilizer to more 
than pay all cost of raising the frogs. 
These are a few of the schemes that have 
been proposed to me. I am almost ashamed 
to say that I have not tried any of them. It 
makes me gloomy to realize how dull I am 
about seeing the profit in them. I guess I 
don’t deserve to get rich. When city farmers 
first came out here I used to advise them to 
raise nothing but hay and rye with, perhaps, 
a few potatoes. They know so much more 
than I do about it that I am done now. 
We have great agricultural possibilities, we 
Jerseymen. Who is smart enough to utilize 
these great chances ? The only person I can 
think of is an Italian chestnut-seller who gave 
me an instance of economy of labor pure and 
simple. This man spends Sunday in the coun¬ 
try gathering the chestnuts we are not enter¬ 
prising enough to pick up. He says he can 
gather enough nuts on Sunday to run his 
stand all the week and furnish him about half 
his food. Let this man take any of the above 
schemes in hand and he might make it pay. 
I Can’t. JERSEYMAN. 
FALL WORK ON ILLINOIS ROADS. 
F. GRUNDY. 
We have little or nothing to fear from snow¬ 
drifts in this section. Not more than once in 
a dozen years have our roads been seriously 
blocked or rendered impassable by snow, and 
then for only a very short time. Hence no ar¬ 
rangements are made by the commissioners to 
meet such an emergency. But mud, unfathom¬ 
able mud, is the great evil we have to contend 
with through the greater part of every winter 
and spring. I have seen the roads perfect 
slush-puddles to a depth of 12 to 20 inches for 
three weeks at a time during the months of 
Jauuary and February. W henever the ground 
friezes to a depth of 12 inches or more, we 
can safely calculate on impassable roads for a 
month or six weeks when it begins to thaw 
out. Farmers who are wise make all the pre¬ 
parations necessary to meet such a state of 
affairs by procuring a sufficient supply of 
fuel, groceries, flour, etc , etc., to last at least 
two months, while the roads are good, but 
hundreds of the hand-to-mouth sort are invar¬ 
iably caught with little or nothing on hand, 
and these are the fellows who are almost daily 
seen floundering through the slush in a two- 
wheeled unnamable, containing two or three 
bushels of coal and a few groceries. 
It has become the custom among prudent 
farmers, who live two or more miles from 
town, to haul out coal and wood enough early 
in the fall, when the roads are good, to last 
until the following May. So general has this 
custom become of late years, that coal dealers 
in all the towns and villages throughout this 
section of the state, make advance arrange¬ 
ments to meet the heavy demand sure to come 
in September and October. 
The delivery of grain, live hogs, etc. during 
the winter months by farmers living at a dis¬ 
tance from town is mostly limited to the short 
spells when the roads are frozen hard. But 
if wheat or other farm products take a sud¬ 
den rise in price when the roads are bad, sev¬ 
eral neighbors unite their forces, double teams, 
and haul the stuff to market. Thus, if A has 
a lot of win at, and the price goes up to a sat¬ 
isfactory figure, he calls on neighbors B and 
C to help him deliver it. They promptly re¬ 
spond with the implied understanding that A 
will render them a like service when they hauj 
in their hogs or corn. 
Our soil is of such a peculiar nature that if 
it is stirred any time after August it remains 
loose all winter, hence very little can be done 
during the fall months to obviate the terrible 
condition of our roads in winter. About alj 
that could be done now, that would really be 
of any benefit to the roads, would be to keep 
the ruts filled and the road-bed smooth by the 
frequent use of the rut-scraper. If the road 
is well rounded, as it should be, and then 
kept smooth so that all water will run off as 
fast as it falls, it will remain firm and in good 
condition until softened by freezing and 
thawing. 
Water standing in the ruts will work the 
ruin of a road quicker than anything else. 
Every vehicle passing along cuts the softened 
ruts deeper and churns the soil and water into 
slush and the road is rendered impassable in 
one or two days. I know of nothing that will 
keep our roads in good condition so long and 
well as persistent scraping of the surface and 
keeping the ruts filled. 
All other work done on the highways at 
this season of the year should be confined to 
clearing out the old ditches and opening new 
ones, in order.that no water shall stand along 
the sides of the road. There is very little 
sense in building up a road at great expense 
and then allowing the ditches on either side to 
remain filled with water. The water must be 
drained away before any permanent improve¬ 
ment can be expected, and ditches can b 
opened now better than at any other time. 
Christian Co. Ills. 
STOCK FEEDING WITH FRUIT GROW¬ 
ING, ETC. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
The Rural asks me how I view the idea of 
combining stock-feeding with gardening and 
fruit-growing in the Eastern States. The 
question is one of interest, and one that I have 
taken interest in. Fruit-growers and gardeners 
have more or less unmerchantable products 
that cannot always be utilized, and they also 
often need more manure than they can handily 
get. For those two ends it is apparent that 
some stock should be kept upon every fruit and 
vegetable farm, and, as a matter of fact, this 
is the common practice. I see nothing that 
can be absolutely urged against sometimes ex¬ 
tending it; but it seems to me that as a theory, 
as well as in practice, it has pretty well- 
marked limitations. The theory certainly 
cannot be sustained beyond the practical 
limits set by results; that is, its application 
must not and will not be carried beyond the 
line of profit, in the long run. It will be con¬ 
strained to stop short within that “dead line,” 
the same as ensilage, big barns, the use of ar¬ 
tificial fertilizers, etc., etc. 
The programme is to buy steers and sheep in 
the fall, and feed them on purchased hay and 
grain, selling in the spring. The advantages 
claimed are: 1. The manure is made at home. 
2 . A little profit can be made on the stock. 3. 
Profitable winter work is provided. I will 
consider each point briefly. 
1. “ The manure is made at homo.” This 
is a decided advantage, and it may be said 
further, that the manure from fattening stock 
is of extra quality, especially when the liquids 
are carefully saved. The cost of freighting 
or drawing manure is a large part of the total 
expense incurred in its;purchase; and besides 
that, the supply is often limited, and much 
below the needs of a large fruit farm, or 
garden. To be sure, chemical fertilizers can 
be used to eke out the dung, and in fact gen¬ 
erally must be. I believe that the skillful use 
of manure from grain-fed stock, so as to get 
the whole good of it, is yet very poorly under¬ 
stood; and I have for some time been urging 
upon the attention of intelligent farmers 
the fact that such manure is very ill balanced, 
and unsuitable for using alone, except perhaps 
on a few crops’ which may be able to utilize 
the excess of nitrogen and potash, which it 
holds, relatively to its phosphoric acid. If lam 
right in this, (and the result of my own prac¬ 
tice satisfies me that I am) the rich manure 
of grained stock is doubled in its fertilizing 
effect (and at the same time cured of the ill ef¬ 
fects of nitrogenous excess,) by mixing with it, 
a large handful daily, forjeach head of stock, of 
ground bone, or South Carolina floats. This 
will prove to be worth a good deal more than 
“ the price of one year’s subscription,” to the 
reader who will heed it. 
2. “A little profit can’be made on the stock.” 
Ah, there’s the rub ! Can it ? It is said in 
New England that, as a rule, all our cattle 
buyers and drovers die poor. It certainly re¬ 
quires a vast amount of knowledge and busi¬ 
ness ability to buy stock, and sell it again, 
either store or fat, so as to make money out of 
it, year in and year out. I incline to fear that 
not all our fruit farms are rightly located for 
this purpose, even if the right men (as stock 
buyers and feeders) are on them. This is sup¬ 
posing they are all fitted up with buildings, 
yards and pens for the business. On farms 
conveniently located, so near to large centers 
of population and business that the fat beasts 
can be turned directly into the hands of the 
local butchers, I think the thing might have a 
chance to succeed, especially as at these cen¬ 
ters the necessary purchased feed may often 
be got at better rates than elsewhere. But 
even under the fairest conditions the amount 
of capital required and the risks surrounding 
the venture are such that it would hardly do 
to bank much on a direct profit—even a small 
one. But if we can “make one hand wash the 
other,” it still may do. 
3 . “Profitable winter work is provided.” I 
do not think this point very important, be¬ 
cause on nearly all fruit and truck farms and 
market gardens wo need to keep only oQr 
foreman and best hands over winter, and 
usually there is work enough for them to do. 
I have above, to the best of my ability, 
briefly answered your inquiry as to how far 
and under what circumstances this system can 
be made to pay. To your further question, 
what stock will go best with market garden¬ 
ing, or fruit-growing—cattle, sheep, pigs, or 
poultry?—I will first eliminate the last item 
by saying that the only profitable place I have 
found for poultry is iu the plum orchard, 
