280 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
APRIL 2# 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
ANatlonal Journal for Country and Suburban Home 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. C4RMA.N. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1888. 
Major Alvord, of the Massachusetts 
Agricultural College, was elected Director 
of Cornell University Agricultural Exper- 
ment Station, April 6, 1888. 
Let birds follow and cling to civiliza¬ 
tion—not be repelled by it. Or is civili¬ 
zation the enemy of all God’s creatures ex¬ 
cept man? And isn’t it a question wheth¬ 
er civilization, as we see it, is not an 
enemy of man himself? 
Faithful illustrations of trees tell at a 
glance what the most studied descriptions 
fail to do. We are now having our chief 
evergreen trees photographed, so that we 
shall be able to place their portraits be¬ 
fore our readers in due time. Later in 
the season the rarest and most desirable 
of the deciduous trees will be photo¬ 
graphed. 
Again we caution our readers against 
the folly of going too deeply into the 
evaporated sweet corn business. Many 
papers are dilating at length upon the 
profits of the business. Perhaps they 
know more about it than those who buy 
and sell the goods do. The latter inform 
us that the demand is not large enough 
yet to warrant any great increase in the 
supply. 
Mr. J. T. Macomber, of Grand Isle, 
Vt., writes us that he has four seedling 
roses, one of which is the result of crossing 
Gloire de Dijon on the sweet briar, the 
other three bv crossing Cels upon the 
sweet briar. The first grew more than 
20 feet in the aggregate the first year 
from the seed. There were three strong 
canes each about six feet long, besides 
several smaller ones. They have grown 
three seasons, but have not yet blossomed. 
They are not hardy without protection, 
some canes being killed to the snow line. 
-♦ ♦♦- 
Dr. Hoskins's article on the Black Side 
of Farming is begun in this number. He 
himself believes that farming is profitable 
to the right sort of men. So do we all. 
There are many farmers, however, that 
lack energy, courage, judgment and perse¬ 
verance. They begin with little faith in 
their business and less respect for it, and 
they end with none. In Dr. Hoskins’s 
story, it is shown how it goes with such 
men under even very favorable conditions 
—a good location, a free start, no domes¬ 
tic complications and a fair degree of in¬ 
telligence, with no bad habits. 
Wno knows of a better early wrinkled 
pea, and a more prolific early wrinkled 
pea, than Alpha? American Wonder will 
give you peas as fine in quality, but the 
Alpha will yield five to one. We have 
given up the Wonder after having raised 
it since a year or so before it was offered 
for sale. The vines grow in rich soil 12 
inches high; in poor soil not over six 
inches. Such vines do not bear enough 
to pay for planting them. The Alpha 
vines grow nearly three feet high, and are 
not over three days later in bearing than 
the Wonder. It is the Rural’s belief 
that those who plant the Laxton’s Alpha 
and the Wonder side by side will in the 
future choose the former and reject the 
latter. 
It is the farmer’s great work to feed all 
humankind. Just now the opening of 
new regions especially productive of grain 
makes his task the easier, but these 
great areas are nearly the last that are 
available of virgin soils, and meanwhile 
the human race is increasing faster than 
ever before, because human life is so much 
more effectually protected. Soon men 
will be like caterpillars who have eaten 
almost the last leaf from a tree and have 
no other which they can reach. In old 
times the race was kept down by wars, 
by diseases which they could not control, 
and by famines owing to poor farming 
and oppressed farmers, and by inadequate 
means of transport, and this gave Mother 
Earth some rest. It looks now as if the 
future reductions of human numbers 
would be occasioned by self-poisoning 
with the unwholsome air of rooms and with 
various toxic ingredients in confections, 
canned foods and quack medicines, added 
to epidemic self-indulgence. 
Some eight years ago the Climbing 
Hydrangea (Schizophragma Hydrangeo- 
ides) was announced as a hardy, Japan 
vine, growing to the hight of 50 feet and, 
like the Virginia Creeper, attaching itself 
very firmly to anything upon which it 
climbs. The R. N.-Y. procured a single 
specimen and for the want of a better 
place at the time, it was planted at the 
base of an old apple stump within 10 feet 
of the north side of the dwelling. It has 
never been removed. In the meantime 
the branches of an Austrian Pine have 
overshadowed it on one side, and those of 
a Hardy Catalpa on another. Thus it 
exists in a full Northern exposure, in a 
poor soil pretty well filled with the roots 
of the two trees mentioned. If it receives 
any sun at all, it is but for a few minutes 
in the morning. We are surprised to find 
that under such conditions, not a bud 
has been injured during the past bitterly 
cold winter. It seems to the R. N.-Y. a 
matter of some importance that these 
facts should be known since there are 
few if any other perfectly hardy vines 
that will thrive under similar unfavorable 
circumstances. 
HARDINESS OF BLACKBERRIES THE 
PAST WINTER AT THE RURAL 
GROUNDS. 
I t has been a trying winter for black¬ 
berries, and only the hardiest varieties 
have passed through it without more or 
less injury. Taylor’s Prolific and Snyder 
sustained scarcely any injury. Wilson 
Jr. was badly killed back. An occasional 
cane is alive two feet above the ground. 
Early Cluster is less injured than Wilson 
Jr. Some canes are alive within a foot of 
the tips. Bonanza has stood well and 
Agawam is hurt only for a few inches be¬ 
low the tips. Agawam is a good berry, 
though not as productive as some. Thorn¬ 
less was injured but slightly. This is 
really thornless, but decidedly unproduc¬ 
tive. We want a good, hardy, thornless 
blackberry. Crystal White was killed 
back to within six inches of the ground. 
Lucretia Dewberry was not materially 
harmed. Topsy was badly injured. If it 
were an ironclad, its armament of thorns 
would condemn it. Erie was injured but 
slightly. Bangor uninjured. Bagnard 
injured slightly. Kittatinny is so serious¬ 
ly killed back that it can scarcely bear 
one-tenth of a crop. Many canes are dead 
to the ground. Minnewaski, one small 
plant, does not seem to have been injured. 
Gaynor injured only to a trifling extent. 
Red Cluster uninjured. 
FERTILIZER LEGISLATION IN NEW 
YORK. 
T he Maynard Fertilizer Bill, just passed 
by the New York Assembly, requires 
every person selling fertilizers in this 
State to furnish an analysis of the con¬ 
tents with every package; to file a copy 
of the same at the Geneva Experiment 
Station, together with a sealed glass bottle 
containing at least apound of the fertilizer, 
with an affidavit that it is a fair sample, 
and to pay a yearly license fee of $10 for 
each fertilizer ingredient claimed to be 
contained in each brand. Each local 
agent must file his address, the name of 
each brand he sells, and the address of the 
maker. Each sample is to be analyzed at 
the Station, the results are to be published, 
and the publication is to be sent to each 
agent. The New York Fertilizer Ex¬ 
change, in behalf of the manufacturers, 
while desirous of a full and free in¬ 
spection and analysis of fertilizers, is 
unwilling that the agent or manufacturer 
should send samples to the Station, pre¬ 
ferring that some disinterested person 
should do so from stock for sale. A 
strong objection is also made to the fee 
of $10 for each fertilizing ingredient, 
chiefly on the ground that it would add 
to the cost of the goods and therefore be 
a blow at the farmer. Inasmuch as the 
Geneva Station is liberally supported by 
the State for the very purpose of afford¬ 
ing needed agricultural information to 
farmers, couldn’t it afford to give the 
proposed information on fertilizers also; 
or if it could not with the present appro¬ 
priation, wouldn’t it be advisable to have 
the appropriation increased rather than to 
add indirectly to the prices farmers have to 
pay for their fertilizers? 
SELF-HELP AMONG FARMERS. 
T he Western farmers seem bound to 
help themselves. If they and farmers 
in general do not do so, certain it is that 
nobody else will. The latest scheme of 
our Western friends is a far-reaching ele¬ 
vator company to be owned and patron¬ 
ized chiefly by the farmers of Dakota and 
Minnesota, and to be under charge of the 
Farmers’ Alliance. The object is to get 
wheat from the farmers to the millers at 
the lowest cost for hauling and in its 
greatest purity. It is charged that all the 
wheat of that section, except that used at 
Minneapolis, is mixed, in transit, with in¬ 
ferior sorts. This greatly reduces its 
commercial as well as its milling value, 
and while farmers and millers suffer great 
loss, large illegitimate profits are secured 
by intermediate handlers. The capital of 
the new enterprise is to be contributed 
chiefly by the farmers and millers of the 
Northwest; but Eastern millers will also 
invest some, as it is greatly to their inter¬ 
est to be able to obtain pure wheat. Sev¬ 
eral English grain and flour men 
are also interested in the scheme. 
It is expected that the present large mar¬ 
gins in buying, shortage in weights, 
heavy dockage, under-grading at interior 
points, depreciation by mixing in transit, 
and various other evils that vex the souls 
and deplete the pockets of the farmers, 
will to a large extent be avoided. The 
company has secured the control of an 
elevator at Duluth, and will have another 
at Minneapolis and a third at Buffalo. 
By the time the new crop comes into 
market, it expects to have control of be¬ 
tween 200 and 800 elevators. Success to 
it! Self-help is the noblest of all helps, 
and is within the reach of all. Let each 
of us henceforth, North, South, East and 
West, make the most of it! 
AGRICULTURE IN NEW ENGLAND. 
T 'he “Decay of Rural New England” 
is the title of an article in a late issue 
of the American Magazine. If one half 
what it says is true, there must be a very 
“black side” to New England farming 
just now. It has given rise to a good 
deal of discussion in the New England 
papers. According to the Journal of 
Lewiston, Maine, a real estate dealer in 
that small town has over 300 Maine farms 
for sale. Among them is one of 400 acres 
in Oxford county, with good buildings, 
that he would sell for $700, and another 
of 100 acres within two miles of Lewis¬ 
ton, with buildings that could not be re¬ 
placed for $2,000, and he is waiting for 
a purchaser who will pay only $3,200 for 
the whole. Last Tuesday, 2,068 acres 
belonging to the Earl of Craven’s Irish 
estate were sold in London at auction for 
about $3,900. A few years ago the prop¬ 
erty would have brought over $50,000 for 
its sporting capabilities alone. Even 
if all that is said about the decadence 
of agriculture in some parts of New Eng¬ 
land were true, the decadence of agricul¬ 
ture in some parts of one of the richest ag¬ 
ricultural countries in Europe is still more 
deplorable. 
There’s a good deal of talk on this sub¬ 
ject; but there are few trustworthy proofs 
in the matter. The census of 1880, how¬ 
ever, tends to confirm the statements of 
the article, as it shows that about the only 
substantial increase of population in New 
England was in the large cities. The 
farmers’ sons of that section drift to the 
large cities of the East or to the wide 
West. Of the 430,041 natives of Vermont 
in the United States in 1880, only 257,780, 
or 58 per cent lived in Vermont, while the 
remaining 178,261 were dispersed all over 
the country. It is pretty certain that the 
number who left the rural districts was 
proportionately greater than the number 
who left the State, yet a correspondent has 
an excellent article elsewhere on the pos¬ 
sibilities of farming in Vermont. 
SUFFERERS FROM CANCER. 
H aven’t you often seen advertise¬ 
ments of sure cures for cancer? 
Haven’t you sometimes met an itinerant 
charlatan confident that he could cure 
the worst cases of that awful malady? 
The advertisements make no distinction 
between the various types of cancer: they 
offer a panacea for all. The charlatan, 
rough or smooth, but always illiterate, is 
invariably boastful and self-confident. 
Both the advertisements and the charlatan 
are certain to find dupes. Not the least 
painful consideration about this torturing 
disease is that so many of its unfortunate 
victims trust to useless or pernicious nos¬ 
trums or place themselves in the hands of 
ignorant persons who profess to be able 
to cure cancers, but whose violent reme¬ 
dies, if they do not actually destroy 
life, as is often the case, only aggra¬ 
vate suffering and entail disappoint¬ 
ment. The only hope of success in 
the treatment of cancer lies in the 
entire removal of the disease. Obviously 
this can be accomplished only when the 
growth affects parts within reach of 
the surgeon and when the tumor is of 
such recent formation and limited extent 
as not to affect the general health of the 
patient or the neighboring lymphatic 
glands. Even then excision of thegrowth 
seldom does more than to relieve suffering 
and prolong life, owing to the intense ten - 
dency of the disease to recur sooner or 
later. Where its prompt and entire re¬ 
moval is impracticable, death alone can 
relieve the sufferer. All the medical 
science and surgical skill of the New 
World could not save the life of General 
Grant; nor can all the medical science 
and surgical skill of the Old World save 
that of the most mighty monarch on the 
globe—the moribund Kaiser who can set 
two millions of men in the field to take the 
lives of his neighbors, but cannot get one 
to save his own. How pathetic that ap¬ 
peal of the agonized sufferer to his chap¬ 
lain last Thursday, “You pray for my 
preservation; rather pray for my release.” 
Alas! all over the globe there are many 
others to whom a God-sent death would 
be a boon. God pity them ail! 
BREVITIES. 
“The remedy for club-root in cabbages.” A 
good subject for the experiment stations to 
investigate. 
Lawn-mowers must be applied if a fine 
lawn is desired. Few, if any, are better than 
the Philadelphia. 
If we were going to plant but one kind of 
canna, it would be Ehemanni. But we have 
never seen the bloom of Boulanger. 
Let us remind readers that asparagus roots 
may still be planted. The price is about $1 
per hundred, horse radish roots bring about 
the same price. Have you horse-radish? 
Rhubarb roots are worth about $1 a dozen. 
Have you planted a few roses, friends? We 
mean you who have never cultivated roses 
before. If not, there is still time. In fact 
little is gained by planting roses from green¬ 
houses before late May. Those in the open 
ground had better be transplanted before 
the buds push. 
The excellent article entitled “Horse-breed¬ 
ing in Central Illinois” which appeared on the 
first page of the Rural of April 14, was sent 
to us by our friend B. F. Johnson, and was 
credited to him by mistake. It was written 
however, by his friend Mr. J. W. Booker, an 
extensive horse breeder and feeder of Cham¬ 
paign County, Illinois, 
Superfin (Beurr4 Superfin) is an autumn 
pear of much merit. It is of medium size and 
shaped as much like Seckel as any other, 
though it averages larger. With us the pears 
are nearly covered with russet. The flesh is 
very refreshing, being juicy, vinous and of 
an agreeable medium between the sweetness 
of the Seckel and the acidity of the Anjou. 
Don’t plant Teosinte in the North. Remem¬ 
ber that the Rural has identified “Australian 
Millet” as Johnson Grass. Kaffir Corn will 
not be valued where Indian Corn is a sure 
crop. Try Alfalfa cautiously until you can 
learn from experience whether you care to 
have fields instead of plots. Japan Clover is 
worthless where Red Clover will grow. Are 
we right? 
There’s a report that Claus Spreckels is 
not sincere in his professed intention to com¬ 
bat the great Sugar Trust. Some say he is 
merely playing a big game of bluff with it. 
This charge is very emphatically denied, how¬ 
ever, on his part, and it is said the buildings 
on the lately purchased Philadelphia property 
will be at once demolished, and then the con¬ 
struction of the mammoth refinery will be 
begun. The public will have good cause for 
indignation, if it should turn out that it 
has been deceived in this matter. 
Eli Minch, horticultural editor of several 
journals, says: “I am very interested in your 
work and prize it. I am determined to sup¬ 
port you, for I know you are right and en¬ 
titled to well earned success. You are doing 
the work of half-a-dozen experiment stations, 
as they are usually managed, besides carry¬ 
ing on the greatest agricultural journal in the 
world. In my potato trials, made by the 
Rural’s system, I am going to give the pub¬ 
lic acres since they want them, and propose to 
stand by you, for you are on right ground and 
must succeed. ” 
Some one has got up another scare, namely 
that malaria may be introduced with the soil 
used in potting house plants. But soil for that 
use is always taken or should be taken from 
the surface, or if from a heap, one that has 
been well permeated for months by the air. 
Mud, long shut off from the air by being cov¬ 
ered with water, is said to breed malaria. It 
is at any rate, if used fresh, unwholesome for 
plants. Healthy plants are probably beneficial 
in rooms, especially in winter. In summer 
the night air should have free entrance and 
exit in sleeping rooms, excepting perhaps in 
known malarial districts. 
The Florida orange growers are bandying 
the topic of fumigation with sulphur as a 
means of postponing the decay of their fruit. 
Singularly they claim that it hightens the 
color instead of having its usual blanching 
effect: but they have not got so far as some 
of our wise men of the North, who try to 
scare us with the assertion that the mere fumes 
of sulphur will adhere to the fruit weeks 
after they have been sublimed, and to such 
an extent as to injure the health of those who 
eat it, but who may take half a spoonful of 
sulphur raw at one dose with impunity, and 
when prescribed, with specially good effect. 
The Floridians have not found fumigation a 
preventive of the rot. As with grapes, oranges 
seem to keep best stored in dry, still air, or 
eft’hanging on the^tree. 
