damp state, either salt or lime will undoubt¬ 
edly have some effect in preventing excessive 
fermentation and heating and the resulting 
mustiness which so often injure hay. 
Miscellaneous. 
G. F., West Alexandria, Ohio. —1. Which 
is the best way to apply pyrethrum to my cab¬ 
bage—in a powder form, or mixed with 
water? 2. Can Woodason’s Improved Patent¬ 
ed Bellows be used either for powder or liquid 
poisons? 3. Are the above named bellows the 
best for applying poisons to cabbage, pota¬ 
toes, etc.? 4. Who keeps the pure pyrethrum 
powder for sale? 
A ns. —1. Mixed with water. Take two 
heaping spoonfuls and wet it with hot water 
and stir until it forms a paste. Then mix it in 
two gallons of cold water. 2. No. There are 
two kinds—one for powder, the other for 
liquid. 3. Yes, for powder. For liquid, noth¬ 
ing can equal the band force pump, hose, tube 
and spraying nozzle—Cyclone or Climax. 
The spraying bellows answer well enough for 
a small patch; but for large areas of cabbages 
the work would become exceedingly labor¬ 
ious. 
II. II ., Valley City , Dakota. —The prices 
quoted for rye straw in the New York mar¬ 
kets are a puzzle to me. Last week the figures 
were long rye straw, 90 cents to $1; short do, 
65 to 70 cents. Why should the long be worth 
so much more and w hat is the straw used for 
to make it worth so much? 
Ans. —Rye straw is worth more for paper 
making than any other kind. This makes its 
chief superiority in price. Long straw is used 
for filling mattresses and for the best horse 
bedding, while the short straw is not suitable 
for this purpose. 
E. G. L., Essex, N. Y. —I wish to plant two 
evergreens, one magnolia, and one weeping 
birch on a lawn 50x75 feet. What varieties 
are best suited to the climate of Northern New 
York? The thermometer goes down to 22° 
below zero for a day or two, and is often 10° 
below for a week. 
Ans. —Evergreens: Blue Spruce and Al- 
cock’s Spruce. These grow too large perhaps 
for so small a lawn; still we should select 
them. Magnolia: M. acuminata. We know 
of but one variety of the Weeping Birch. 
J. S. B.. New Berlin, N. Y .—A late Rural 
advised the planting of Boa trivialis on a 
shaded, damp lawn; where can it be obtained? 
Ans. —Thorburn, Henderson, Gregory, and 
all the leading seedsmen offer it. The price is 
at retail about 35 cents per pound. 
W. W., Kane, Pa. —Should white helle¬ 
bore be put on currant and gooseberry bushes 
as soon as the leaves appear? 
Ans. —No, not quite so soon. The young 
worms will first appear on the lower leaves. 
As soon as detected, then use the hellebore. 
E. D. II., Shrewsbury, Pa .—Where can I 
buy an egg tester? 
Ans. —Brockner & Evans, 28 Vesey St., this 
city, sell a good one. 
E. L., Madison, Dak. —Has Haaff’s new 
work on dehorning been published yet? 
Ans.—I t will be ready about June, we be¬ 
lieve. 
W. M. K., Anacostia, D. C .—Who makes 
portable iron houses? 
Ans.—T he Canton Iron Co., Canton, Ohio. 
DISCUSSION. 
A. H. L., So. Dayton, N. Y.—I am pleased 
with the Rural’s way of raising potatoes. I 
am convinced by experience that level culti¬ 
vation is the best plan. I used to dig holes 
with a hoe to drop the seed. I now use a ma¬ 
chine of my own invention which makes two 
trenches at once. It is attached to my wheel 
harrow (the Whipple). Iliad never thought 
that the trenches made any difference with 
the yield. I cover with a hoe and then roll 
the ground with a laud roller after planting. 
My idea in this is that it breaks any lumps 
which may remain on the surface, packs the 
dirt over the pieces, which prevents them 
from drying out fn case we do not have a 
rain soon after planting. It also enables me 
to begin cultivation at least six days sooner, 
as I can see the rows as soon as they are fair¬ 
ly out of the ground. I always row both 
ways for it makes cultivation and digging 
easier, and if I do not get as Jarg§ a yield per 
acre I think I get a better quality and I can 
plant a little more land. My neighbors nearly 
all say that one should not hoe potatoes in 
dry weather; I always do this. Last year my 
crop was about three times the average in 
this vicinity. I use a horse cultivator in the 
rows from three to five times each way. I 
never use a shovel plow: 1 hill lightly with a 
hoe and am very careful to kill all weeds. 
SUGGESTIONS FOR HYBRDIZED FRUITS. 
J. A. H., Carlton, Pa.—Red and white 
currants and cultivated gooseberries are here 
injured by worms as with you, but we have 
wild and cultivated black currants and an or¬ 
namental variety with yellow fragrant flowers, 
that are exempt. I have never seen a worm 
on a wild gooseberry bush, although the woods 
are full of them. The fruit is as large as that 
of the common cultivated variety (which I 
think is the Houghton) and, barring the spines, 
quite equal in quality. Some consider it bet¬ 
ter for pies, but the seines have to be rubbed 
off before cooking. Might not worm-proof 
currants and gooseberries be obtained from 
those varieties? Some time ago, when the 
June-berry was discussed, some one suggested 
hybridizing the June-berry and apple. This 
would look like a violent cross; but my next 
neighbor has apple grafts three or four years 
old growing on twoJuno-berry trees. They have 
borne two crops of nice apples. I have heard 
it asserted that the curraut would grow on the 
June-berry, but I tried it once and did not 
succeed. I have successfully grafted the peach 
on the wild plum. The habit of growth of the 
peach was greatly changed for it was very 
short-jointed and bushy. 
G. W., Stephenville, Tex.—A. C. B., in 
the Rural of April 21, page 281, under head 
of “Grape Growing for Profit,” in speaking 
of the Clinton Grape, says: “If one will wait 
on the Clinton, he will have one that is good,” 
etc. What does he mean by such an expres¬ 
sion? Is it that the grape is very late in ri¬ 
pening, or does it take the vine many years 
to come into bearing? By the way, what 
does the Rural think of the Clinton? Is it 
hardy, a prolific bearer, etc., and is it a vig¬ 
orous-growing vine? 
It. N.-Y.—The Clinton colors long before it 
is ripe. That is what A. B. C. meant. It is 
a very hardy variety, and a rampant grower. 
It will thrive in a comparatively poor soil, 
and where many finer varieties fail. Its har¬ 
diness and productiveness are valuable quali¬ 
ties, while, when fully ripe, its peculiar, spicy 
flavor is relished by many. 
Discontent on the Farm.— There are a 
great many dissatisfied farmers iu the North¬ 
west, says an excellent editorial in the Home¬ 
stead, of Des Moines, Iowa. They have been 
waiting for three years for a revival of busi¬ 
ness, but find to their sorrow that prices are low¬ 
er than they have been since the panic of 1884. 
They see the monied interests prosper, notice 
that manufacturers are pooling and forming 
trusts, and the necessities of life are being 
gradually forced up, whilst they have to com¬ 
pete in the open market with the entire world. 
They hear of phenomenal prosperity else¬ 
where; of booms on the Pacific Coast; of 
cheap lands in Colorado and Texas, or in the 
South, and conclude that it is best to move 
and join the innumerable caravan who are 
seeking a country that shall be a heaven on 
earth, with little of the curse. These men are 
doomed to disappointment. The All-Wise 
has made this country about right. He has 
not put all the good things in one county, or 
in one State, or one nation. Marvelous tales 
could be written of those countries, adhering 
in every case to the literal truth, which would 
make any man in the Northwest dissatisfied 
with his surroundings. And yet these tales 
would be utterly misleading, because, whilst 
the truth, they are not the whole truth, and 
leave out most serious drawbacks that are not 
met with in the Prairie States. 
In the same way farm life in the Eastern 
States could be pictured that would make a 
Western man sigh for the home of his fathers, 
and yet these, too, would be misleading be¬ 
cause the Northwest has advantages to which 
the East is a stranger. We have noticed one 
thing, that whether on the Pacific Coast, or 
in the South or East, or at home, farmers of a 
certain type succeed and of another type fail, 
and succeed and fail in just about the same 
proportion. The farmer who has industry, 
sagacity, brains, who adapts his farming to 
the soil, the climate, the market facil ties, 
and who has the grace of perseverance, suc¬ 
ceeds; the farmer who fails in these, fails 
everywhere. The boy who has succeeded in 
the West would have succeeded in the East; 
the boy who fails in the West would have 
failed in the East. Success is not a question 
of climate, of cheap land or dear, but lies in 
the man himself. Thousands of farmers in 
the East would like to sell and go West; thous¬ 
ands in the Prairie States of Kansas, Nebras¬ 
ka and Dakota would like to do the same thing, 
and all are spending enough time in trying to 
sell or change, to make success so complete 
that there would be no desire to change if they 
could but apply their energies in the right 
direction at home. 
The following is from the Farm Journal for 
May, written by its interesting contributor, 
Jacob Biggie: 
“I note with interest that you, Mr. Editor, 
and Mr. Carman, of the Rural New-Yorker, 
are going to see how many bushels of potatoes 
can be grown on an acre of ground, and I am 
glad you accepted the Rural's challenge. 
As I do not believe Mr. Carman can accom¬ 
plish what he undertakes, I expect you to win 
in the contest, but he deserves credit for his 
courage, and if he succeeds and gives the pub¬ 
lic the benefit of his method he will perform a 
great public service. And yet he must prove 
the profitableness of his method. If he spade 
up the ground, harrow it with a hand-rake, 
get Mrs. Carman aDd the little Carboys to 
water the plants twice a day with watering 
pots, expend a young fortune in fertilizers, 
obtaining a yield of 700 bushels per acre at an 
unwarrantable cost, he will not have accom¬ 
plished anything to boast of. It is ‘profitable 
potato culture’ that we want to know about, 
and it is this that he undertakes to demon¬ 
strate. I hope he will succeed.” 
We can assure our friend that every item of 
the cost and every item of the method will be 
piublished. The little plot will not bo cared 
for in any way not practicable iu field culture. 
Should we have no rain during the entire sea¬ 
son, the little plot will not be “watered with 
watering pots” or in any other way. Yes, it 
is “profitable potato culture” that we are 
working for. If the cost of a crop is increased 
in a ratio that the increase of crop does not 
warrant, nothing is gained by the method 
employed. It is valueless. The theory of the 
R. N.-Y. method is that (1) it conserves moist¬ 
ure and, therefore, helps to carry the plants 
through dry periods, from which at one time 
or another, during most seasons, they suffer 
more or less; that (2) it helps to provide a 
yielding medium and ample space for the 
growth of the tubers; that (3) it furnishes 
them with all the food the plants require dur¬ 
ing the entire season. 
We have repeatedly, side by side, with and 
without fertilizer, tried this new method and 
the usual method of raising potatoes, with the 
invariable result that the trenches have given 
a decidedly larger yield. More than this, in 
our trials a given increase of fertilizer by the 
new method has given a greater increase of 
yield than the same amount of fertilizer by the 
old way, which of itself is an important con¬ 
sideration. It shows that in the one case the 
plant is able to appropriate the food supplied 
to a better advantage than in the other. 
Novelties In Seeds and Plants. —We 
are pleased to see that the Orange County Far¬ 
mer protests against the wholesale denuncia¬ 
tion of “novelties” in seeds and plants, which 
is indulged in by some of its contemporaries. 
It is true, as asserted, that a large majority of 
them turn out to be worthless, or nearly so, 
but that affords no excuse for the indiscrimi¬ 
nate abuse of them or those who are responsi¬ 
ble for them. No one is compelled to buy 
them, and the prudent man is he who buys 
carefully of them. But we must not forget 
that almost everything we now have of value 
among fruits and vegetables was once a novel¬ 
ty. It is not long since we could count 
our valuable varieties of grapes on the fingers 
of our hands. The Rural New-Yorker, af¬ 
ter 15 years of pretty extensive novelty test¬ 
ing, is of the opinion that those farmers who 
keep their eyes and ears open as to new things, 
whether they be seeds, plauts, implements, 
books or anything whatever, and judiciously 
invest in them according to their means, are 
the successful farmers of to day, and they 
will be the successful farmers of the future. 
It is only cranks, old-fogies, ignorant or inex¬ 
perienced writers that condemn novelties in 
the wholesale way mentioned by our contem¬ 
porary. We can mention a single variety of 
wheat—a novelty when we began raising it— 
that would easily pay us for all our trouble 
and expense in raising scores of new kinds, 
were we in a way to engage in wheat culture 
largely, and the same may be said of many 
vegetables, sweet and field corn, grapes, pears, 
etc., etc. The progressive, wide-awake farm 
press is a great power in the land; but the old 
fuss-cats and bitter-sweets that hear only an 
alarm in every bell-toll, simply plant them¬ 
selves iu the face of progress, and do a world 
of harm. 
Feeding Rations.—I f we look back but a 
short period questions relating to the scentific 
feeding of stock were scarcely known. Advice 
upon the purely practical side of feeding was 
frequently asked, says the London Agricul¬ 
tural Gazette, but that there was a scientific 
side to the subject was, if known, certainly 
not considered. There is evidence that many 
of our best breeders and feeders have arrived 
practically at that right adjustment of both 
quantity and quality of food which scientific 
feeding experiments show to be necessary. 
These men are, however, the most anxious of 
all for this scientific knowledge. They want 
to know why they have succeeded. And is it 
not the chief aim of science to give us 
“the reason why,” alike of failure as of suc¬ 
cess; while therein lies its chief value to prac¬ 
tical farmers? We must, however, guard 
against the reaction from “practice "i til out 
principles” going to exlremes and bcr o-tr'ng 
“principles without practice;” if so, it «il] 
only result in failure and disappointment. 
The quickest way along the stream is dow n the 
middle; and in farming, also, we must avoid 
extremes or we shall strike against the bank 
and not make any progress. Science cannot 
take the place of practical experience and 
knowledge. It is to the farmer what the com¬ 
pass is to the sailor, which, though it shows 
him how to steer, could not itself control the 
vessel. We have found out, rather late, un¬ 
fortunately, that a too implicit belief in arti¬ 
ficial manuring has led to much waste of 
money. Let us remember the lesson and not 
make the same mistake with regard ,o the 
feeding of our live stock. After all, practical 
experience must be our main guide. The anal¬ 
ysis of a food is far from a complete statement 
of the properties of that food. Just as each 
animal we possess has an individuality of its 
own, so each article of food has some special 
and peculiar property not revealed by chemi¬ 
cal analysis—a physiological prop* rty, we pre¬ 
sume. But if chemical analysis does not give 
us every fact connected with food, that is no 
reason why we should not utilize su h infor¬ 
mation as it does give. There can be no doubt 
that the animals we feed • eed the three consti¬ 
tuents—albumen, fat, and starch—to build up 
their bodies, and it seems evident that these 
should be present in a definite relation to one 
another if we wish to make the most of the 
other foods—in other words, if we are to feed 
profitably. Let, then, one and all of us dis¬ 
cover how far our practice meets this demand, 
and, if not, how can we improve it, for we 
may be sure that only good will result from a 
careful seasoning of our practice with the dic¬ 
tates of science, 
Holstein Beef.— Prof. Brown, of the On¬ 
tario Agricultural College, has been making 
some experiments with Holstein grades as beef 
animals. Records of two of these grade 
steers are given as follows: 
Days Live Daily rate 
From old. weight, of in- 
„ , , . , crease. 
Holstein and common cow.860 1.790 2.06 
Holstein and Jersey grade.605 1,329 2.18 
Here, evidently, says Prof. Brown, are facts 
of unusual practical importance to patrons of 
Holstein cattle, as well as to all interested in 
dairying in conjunction with the production 
of early beef. In the first example we have a 
steer two years and four months old that 
weighed 1,790 pounds, and in the other the an¬ 
imal scaled actually 1,329 pounds when only 
one year and eight months. We have, then,in 
both cases a daily record of considerably over 
two pounds, and, ho thinks, equal to the aver¬ 
age of any dozen of any other breed of w hich 
we have records either at Chicago, in Canada, 
or at Smithfield, England Of course, this 
comparison of two with a dozen is not usual, 
but he puts it thus in order to draw attention. 
The older steer having been killed, gave 62^ 
per cent, of butcher’s meat. 
BOILED DOWN AND SEASONED. 
Our energetic friend, the Orange Co. Farm¬ 
er, says: 
There seems to be a well-founded impression 
that sulphur will prevent scab on potatoes—at 
least to a considerable extent. The experi¬ 
ment is easily tried and can do no harm, even 
if it does no good. The simplest w’ay to try it 
would be to sprinkle the seed (if cut) with sul¬ 
phur and shovel them over, so that each piece 
would be sure to have a considerable quantity 
adhering. It would not be difficult, if whole 
seed is used, to dust each hill thoroughly with 
sulphur before the potato was covered. Let 
the experiment be tried on alternate rows in 
the field, and then we shall know more about 
it. 
Our contemporary, if it looks the Rural 
over as carefully as wo read the Farmer,should 
know that the R. N.-Y. was not only the first 
to try sulphur as a preventive of scab, so far 
as is generally known, at any rate, but that it 
has tried it for three seasons and is again try¬ 
ing it the present season. Our opinion is that 
dusting the seed pieces will not repel the wire- 
worm or destroy the fungus—whichever may 
cause the scab. As the new tubers are borne 
on shoots which issue from the eye-shoots of 
the seed, they form above or, at least* away 
from the seed pieces and could scarcely be 
protected by the sulphur sprinkled upon them. 
Our way has been to sow the sulphur after the 
seed has been covered with about two inches 
of soil—the same as fertilizer is sown. Still 
it might be well to try the other way. If 
effective it would have the decided advamage 
of greatly reducing the quantity of sulphur 
needed. 
For the coddling moth Professor Cook 
advocates the use of one pound of Paris-green 
mixed in 100 gallons of water. 
Professor G. E. Morrow is not an advocate 
of dehorning.. 
M. Crawford (Ohio), speaking of largo 
crops of strawberries, says that J. M. Smith, 
of Green Bay, Wis., gathered 11 lbushels on as 
