MAY 26 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Home 3 , 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CA.RUAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. S4 Park Row, New York, 
SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1888. 
Lessons which may he learned from lad 
year's drought. See page 349. 
Evergreens ry Mail. —We have re¬ 
ceived 100 little evergreens from Robert 
Douglas & Son, of Waukegan, Ill. They 
were ordered for experimental purposes 
alone, viz., to ascertain how safely such 
trees can be sent by mail and how well it 
pays to plant such little things at a tri¬ 
fling cost rather than the larger and more 
costly evergreens, which are forwarded by 
freight or express. The trees are the fol¬ 
lowing: 12 White Pine seedlings, six to 
eight inches h ; .gh; 12 Picea pungens (Blue 
Spruce), six inches high; six Abies 
Siberica, 10 inches high; six Golden 
Arbor-vitge, eight inches high; six Doug¬ 
las’s Pyramidal Arbor-vitae, six Douglas’s 
White-tipped Arbor-vitae, six Douglas’s 
Little Gem Arbor vifae—all from six to 
10 inches high; 12 White Spruce, eight 
inches high; 12 Picea Douglasii of Colo¬ 
rado; six Abies concolor of Utah; three 
Douglas’s Trailing Juniper, white-tipped. 
The last were about three inches high. 
They were received in perfect order and 
planted the same day. Many of them 
had started growth. 
The Experiment Stations are for the ben¬ 
efit of the farmers , are they not? What do 
you want tltem to do for you , farmers? 
Upon what questions do you need light? 
Make your wants known through the R. 
N.-T. _ _ 
ANNOUNCEMENT. 
1. The result of our potato contest, 
whatever it may be, will be presented in 
a special to be issued about October 1. 
2. The Special Fair Number of the R. 
N.-Y. will go to press August 25, and 
will be distributed at the important fairs 
of the country. Any of our readers who 
care to distribute them or to act as agents 
may apply for any number of copies re¬ 
quired for the purpose. 
3. About September 15 our Annual 
Premium-list Number will be issued. 
Advertising rates for the above specials 
will be the same as for ordinary issues, 
viz., 30 cents per line. 
The following full-page cartoons will 
appear from time to time during the pres¬ 
ent year, viz.: 
1. Bright Side of Farm Life. 
2. The Farmer and the Trusts. 
3. The Country Girl. 
4. Before and After Election. 
5. Dehorning “Bulls and Bears.'’ 
6. The Farmer and the Tariff. 
Among the special topics which will 
receive attentive consideration during the 
rest of the year are the following: 
1. Care of the Farm Team. 
2. How Dairy Herds are Made. 
3. Deep and Shallow Setting for 
Cream. 
4. Does Butter Depend upon Breed or 
Feed? 
5. Shall we Have a Market Day in 
Our Town? 
6. Shall the Farmer Study Mechanics? 
7. How Shall we Spend our School 
Money? 
8. Utilizing Night Soil. 
9. Shall we Heat Water for Dairy 
Cows? 
10. Shall we Breed or Buy the Farm 
Horse? 
■♦ ♦ ♦ —. —- 
In the organization of the experiment 
stations some difficulty has been experi¬ 
enced in finding just the right men for 
assistants. Graduates of our agricultural 
colleges have been called into the work 
very largely, and such colleges as those 
of Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas 
and also Cornell, have proved by their 
graduates something of what is possible 
in the way of agricultural education. We 
find that the graduates of the Michigan 
Agricultural College alone are connected 
with 11 of the agricultural colleges and 
11 of the experiment stations. Of the 21 
graduates connected with colleges, 17 are 
Professors, three members of the Boards 
of Control, and one President. Of the 
17 graduates connected with experiment 
stations under the Hatch Bill, 15 are act¬ 
ive workers, two are Directors, and two 
members of Boards of Control. This is 
certainly a remarkable showing for one 
college, and we are glad it can be made 
by the college that maintains the most 
complete system of manual labor, because 
we have always held that the labor sys¬ 
tem of the Michigan Agricultural College 
has had more to do in leaning the minds 
of its graduates towards agriculture and 
agricultural pursuits than any other influ¬ 
ence. 
If the farmers are the ones to secure the 
benefit of the Hatch Bill , then they are the 
ones to state what kind of information they 
stand most in need of. That is just what 
all earnest Directors want to know. The 
faimers should make their needs known 
and the directors should shape their work 
accordingly. The farm press is the medi¬ 
um through which faimers can best commu¬ 
nicate with the Stations. Let us hear from 
our readers. 
GRAPE NOTES. 
^P'nE new white grape, Roenbeck, is of 
JL very fine quality. It is not hardy at 
the Rural Grounds. Beickmans is alive 
to the last bud. Eaton is not injured. 
We believe that this variety, as a market 
grape at any rate, will take a first place 
among blacks. Amber has been dug up 
and rejected. Brighton, Wilder and F. 
B. Hayes uninjured. Empire State is 
badly hurt in one place, while in another 
it has passed the winter with little harm. 
Alice has been injured slightly. Roanoke 
Neverfail is perfectly hardy. Moore’s 
Early has never been injured. Worden 
seems hardier than Concord. Lady, un¬ 
harmed. Victoria, Carlotta and Rock¬ 
ingham are never injured. Pocklington, 
Early Victor, Cottage, Ulster, Antoinette 
uninjured. Our opinion of the Empire 
State, so highly prized by many, is that it 
is not the hardiest variety in the world. 
It is presumable that the Directors of all 
the Experiment Stations in the country read 
the R. N.-Y ,, which, itself , is really the pio¬ 
neer in this important work. Do the direct¬ 
ors know just what line of investigation the 
farmers would prefer them to pursue? Make 
your needs known through the R. N.-Y. 
FARM APPRENTICESHIP. 
rpiiE following letter is a fair sample of 
1 several that have been received of 
late. It is from a boy in Brooklyn : 
“I have lately been thinking that if I could 
get a position with some good, practical far¬ 
mer who would be willing to give a boy a fair 
chance, and correct his mistakes understand¬ 
ing^, I would find a better field to work in. 
Of course, if a farmer isn’t willing to take a 
little trouble with a willing boy and train him 
as boys have to be trained for every position 
under the sun, he shouldn’t ‘kick’ at ignorant 
Castle Garden farm labor.” 
How many farmers would be willing to 
take such a boy as an apprentice? Most 
city boys, we regret to say, cannot be in¬ 
duced to leave the city for farm work, 
but now and then one can be found sharp 
enough to see that the longer he stays in 
the city the longer he must wait for a 
home of his own. In nine cases out of 
ten such a boy will make an honest and 
capable workman, respectful, intelligent 
and observing. The farmer who can get 
on with such a boy must be patient, just 
and lenient. Like many city youths, the 
boy will be pretty sure he “knows every¬ 
thing.” To make this “superior knowl¬ 
edge” valuable it has got to be toned 
down to practicability without breaking. 
It is held by some that the farmers are rare 
who can get the best there is for farm 
work out of a city boy. It is to be re¬ 
gretted that this is so, for these farm 
apprenticeships might be made very use¬ 
ful in solving the problem of how to trans¬ 
fer the surplus population from city to 
country. We think many farmers would 
fail in having patience enough to wait un¬ 
til the boy crowded himself into his new 
conditions of life. It takes a firm, pa¬ 
tient man to train a high-spirited horse, 
but the horse is worth something when 
it is trained. In the same way it will 
require brains and patience to make a 
sharp city boy into a good farm work¬ 
man, but the workman will be valuable 
when trained. 
THE JUDGES. 
rpiiE R. N.-Y. is attempting to raise at 
the rate of over 700 bushels of pota¬ 
toes to the acre on a certain plot of land 
on which potatoes have been grown for at 
least 10 successive seasons. If it succeed, 
the Editor of the Farm Journal agrees to 
donate $50 to some charity; if it fail, the 
Editor of the R. N.-Y. agrees to donate 
the same amount to the same purpose. 
The following gentlemen have consented 
to act as Judges: 
Thomas S. Burr, Plainfield, N. J. 
W. A. Stiles, Editor of Garden and 
Forest, New York, N. Y. 
Dr. Peter Collier, Director of the 
New York Experiment Station, Geneva, 
N. Y. 
IIon Peter. T. Quinn, Horticultur¬ 
ist, author of “Money in the Garden,” 
etc., etc., Newark, N. J. 
L. C. Benedict, Agricultural Editor 
of the N. Y. World. 
IIon. J. G. Webb, Justice of the Peace, 
River Edge, N. J. 
It shall be the duty of the Judges to de¬ 
termine the exact area of the plot, the 
distance between the trenches, the dis¬ 
tance between the plants in the trenches, 
and to weigh the crop, and to calculate 
therefrom the yield per acre. Their re¬ 
port will be made before Justice Webb 
and sworn to. The Judges will also de¬ 
termine to what charity the $50 shall be 
donated. It is hoped that the Judges 
will be enabled also to estimate the yield of 
potatoes on the half acre plot to be raised 
under the Trench System, in the impov¬ 
erished soil of the new Rural Farm. 
brevities. 
The Rural’s seedling Japan Chestnuts 
hai e passed through the winter with scarcely 
any injury. 
We are not aware that we have ever gained 
anything by setting out tomato plants before 
the first of June. 
The Rural has a seedling of the Purple 
Barberry that retains its purple color during 
the entire summer. 
A fair proportion of the seedlings of the 
Golden Ninebark are golden—some of them 
more so than the parent. 
One of several objections to the Catalpa— 
whether the common or hardy—is that it is 
among the last trees to leaf out. 
Uncle Jacob says in this issue that a roan 
can easily start more work in April than he 
can handle in July. Is he righ(? 
Protection of small fruits in times of 
drought is the seasonable symposium begun 
on page 349 and ended on page 350. 
Read what Uncle Bucephalus has to say on 
page 348, all ye who cannot find work; all ye 
who fancy that you are not appreciated. 
The utility of hydraulic rams on farms, 
where springs and the lay of the land render 
them practicable, is well set forth on page 332. 
It’S mean to say “I told you so,” yet there 
is a great temptation to be “mean” when we 
see a man finding his seed corn frosted and 
worthless. 
Horse-chestnuts are so easily raised from 
seeds that it is a wonder we do not see more 
and a greater variety of this tree about farm¬ 
ers’ houses. 
If lilacs were confined to one stem, and 
given good care, they would take a higher 
rank among the shrubs and little trees that 
bloom in early spring. 
For a new foliage and flower effect we are 
planting an eight-foot circular bed with the 
several kinds of ornamental beets with dwarf 
nasturtiums for a border. 
The touchingly forcible article by Charles J. 
Wright, on page 332, should be read by every 
member of the farmer’s family and preserved 
for their children to read. 
All who are interested in strawberry cul¬ 
ture should not fail to read J. M. Smith’s re¬ 
marks upon the subject, “Protection of Small 
Fruits in Times of Drought,” on page 349. 
There aie as distinct grades of intelligence 
in hens as there are in men. Put a pen of 
Dorkings and a pen of Wyandottes side by side 
and observe their different actions. Tbe Dor¬ 
king fowl exhibits ah almost human intelli¬ 
gence at times. 
A correspondent from Essex, N. Y., 
writes: “The Rural’s promptness in reply¬ 
ing to a late inquiry of mine, saved me three 
dollars at least. This Is not the only time the 
Rural has saved me money and I feel great¬ 
ly in debt to it." 
There are times when the markets are 
glutted with such vegetables as tomatoes, 
cabbages, radishes, cucumbers, etc , and they 
are sold for a song. But we have yet to see 
the time when good asparagus and celery would 
not bring a fair price. 
C. A Green, editor of the Fruit-Grower, 
says: “I used to make a scrap book of clip¬ 
pings from the Rural New-Yorker. I do 
not clip any more from those special issues: 
I put them in whole, in a new book for that 
purpose. The two last strike me as among 
the best.” 
How many farms are there in this country 
that do not “support a monkey-wrench?’’ We 
notice that about every piece of machinery 
sent out by manufacturers has a good monkey- 
wrench as a part of its equipment, and in a 
good many cases these wrenches are found 
very useful. A wrench is a tool that ought to 
be found on every farm. Is it always? 
The folly of buying canned goods, that bear 
no trade mark, just because they are cheaper 
than those which are branded with the name 
of the manufacturer, is well stated in the report 
of the N. J. Dairy Commissioner. When a 
man places food upon the market that he is 
ashamed to mark with his own name we may 
safely conclude that it is poor stuff. 
The man who adopts a trade-mark and 
brands bis produce carefully, assumes a respon¬ 
sibility that will help him or injure him as he 
sees fit to conduct his business. A trade-mark 
is an advertisement. The more a good and 
uniform article is advertised, the better it sells. 
The more inferior goods are advertised the 
harder it is to sell them. If a man proposes to 
use a trade-mark he must sort and) pack with 
the greatest care. 
Consul Baker of Buenos Ayres, shows 
how wbat promised to be a profitable business 
with the Argentine Republic was injured by 
dishonest dealing. The people of the latter 
country wanted American trotting horses and 
were willing to pay good prices for them. 
Some of the animals they bought proved to be 
poor nags with false pedigrees and records. 
The Argentines are sensitive and resent such 
dealing. The honorable dealers will suffer by 
such frauds. It pays to be honest, even in a 
horse trade. 
In his article on page 237, T. B. Terry 
thought the first good rain would so settle the 
loose earth in our potato trenches that it 
would be as hard there as in any other part of 
the field. We have taken special pains to ob¬ 
serve the matter this year. After two rains 
the soil in the trenches is as mellow as flour, 
while that between the rows is quite compact. 
We confidently expect that this mellow con¬ 
dition will continue until the vines so shade 
the ground that firm packing will be next to 
impossible. 
There seems to be quite a boom in cross¬ 
bred poultry this } r ear, and the Dorking ap¬ 
pears to be a very popular breed for this 
crossing. We know of several parties who 
are using White Dorking roosters on Light 
Brahma hens. We have spoken already of 
the cross the Rural hopes to make with a 
White Wyandotte rooster on White Dorking 
hens. We have already three settings of eggs 
under the hens. Our Y7hite Dorking hens are 
surprisingly good layers of large, white eggs. 
Few brighter effects in the way of luxuriant 
foliage can be produced thau by planting the 
various kinds of castor-oil beans, the tall- 
growing in the center of the group, the lower- 
growing outside. The flowers of these plants 
are easily crossed, as the males and females 
are borne separately on the same panicle. 
Years ago we tried the effect of a Ricinus 
plantation in driving moles away with which 
the place was infested. Strange to say the 
moles seemed to select that plot for their head¬ 
quarters. The Rural has tried about every 
remedy—whether plausible or absurd—to keep 
moles away and it concludes that a good trap 
answers the purpose very well. 
A correspondent writes us from Thomas- 
ville, N. C. : “The Bible and the Rural New- 
Yorker will come as near to filling the com¬ 
plement of reading matter for the farmer as 
any couplet I know. He will not be likely to 
go far wrong either in politics, morals, or re¬ 
ligion by reading the two. I often, when 
reading the Rural, see things that give me 
the notion of writing something about them, 
but before I do so, some one else does the thing 
1 proposed, and I am satisfied. I wonder some¬ 
times at that vein of common sense that seems 
to pervade the Rural’s columns. 1 hope the 
Editor’s years will be well lengthened out for 
the good work he is doing. Farmers are not, 
as a rule, very demonstrative; they generally 
think more thanks than they express. I think 
the work and care bestowed ou the Rural are 
better appreciated than its conductor imagines 
When reading the paper I often feel like say¬ 
ing: “ God bless you and yours." 
A correspondent writes us these cheery 
words from Cheboygan, Mich.: “I lend my 
papers to neighbors in hopes some one will be 
induced to subscribe for his own benefit. For 
my part, I have derived a great deal of good, 
sound information from the paper since it 
has been my happy lot to become a subscriber. 
I read the Rural carefully all through, 
and hold it dear to my heart, next to my 
Bible—a present from my dear mother, who 
is now in heaven. Such papers ought to be 
patronized and encouraged by all good peo¬ 
ple, and the country at largo would thereby 
be greatly benefited. I am now only a poor 
laboring man, and if I was only getting 75 
cents per day, and had myself to board out of 
that, I would willingly pay 25 cents per day 
out of my wages for such reading matter, 
providing I could not get it for less. I believe 
in the teachings of my dear friend and instruc¬ 
tor, the late Henry Ward-Beecher, whose ser¬ 
mons I have read in the papers, and the im¬ 
pression has neverjeft me that it is better, if 
necessary, to somewhat starve the body than 
to starve.the mind, and my prayer to day is, 
that God will abundantly bless all good papers 
forjthe.instruction and edification of the com¬ 
mon people, and especially bless and prosper 
the Rural New-Yorker.” 
i 
