JUNE 0 
want it. Everything bnt common-sense 
moves an inexperienced girl in the matter of 
choosing among her admirers the one who 
wears the best clothes. She likes to win what 
will make other girls envious. 
Many country girls say they won’t marry 
a farmer, because their minds are not suffi- 
ciently well regulated to know that it is the 
man they marry and not his occupation 
which will tell the story of their happiness in 
life. They see the inevitable labor which 
must be performed by somebody, perhaps un¬ 
appreciated, and the prospect is too prosaic 
for their romantic age. A farmer’s daughter 
brought up by a judicious mother ought to 
be able to tako hold of farm life in a house 
of her own much more easily than one 
brought up elsew here, because she knows the 
ins and outs of the business. Country girls at 
school are often thrown into company with 
those who manifest a contempt for any thing 
connected with the country, and they have not 
the moral courage to hold their own. Do 
we not all, at any age, expect too much of 
life, thinking it is our surroundings and what 
people think of us and not what we are, 
that is all important. 
gradually to understand that life is a struggle, 
but go softly with them; do not put the 
heaviest tasks upon them; they will get 
enough of hardship hereafter. The morning 
is so short, and has wings. 
What glamour surrounds the city chap 
that renders him so attractive to the country 
maid? 
As I live in Yankeeland, where asking ques¬ 
tions is the prerogative of all, may I answer 
this by asking another? Why was the moon 
composed of green cheese, with a mite of a 
man in it? Hereabouts the country maids all 
marry their neighbors’ sons, obeying the in¬ 
junction, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” 
Some country girls may say they will never 
marry a farmer, perhaps because they are 
discouraged waiting for that coming farmer! 
But I think the very generous allowance of 
drudgery and privations accorded women on 
the farm may have somo influence on the 
mind of such a girl. She does not wish to be 
greedy, but rather take her chance where she 
thinks matters are better equalized. She 
chooses “to fly to the ills she knows not of” 
rather than submit to those with which she is 
acquainted. 
young girl with sludies, and compel her to 
climb so many stairs that the poor child has 
little strength left for domestic work. 
As to the city chap, I don’t know why he is 
so attractive to the country girl, unless it is 
owing to his politeness of manners, the advan¬ 
tage derived from his tasteful apparel, and 
possibly to the idea of a settlement in town, 
where rural girls have an idea there may not 
be so much hard work. 
Home country girls object to farmers as 
husbands possibly because they have been 
obliged to live in such close circumstances, 
and had to work so hard that they are re¬ 
solved to escape such trials. Of course, it 
must be expected that young girls will often 
lack judgment in such mutters. Make the 
farm home bright and interesting. Let not 
the work be too burdensome, and allow the 
daughters a reasonable amount of money to 
use on themselves. Don’t find too much fault 
with them. Love them, and show that you 
do. 
CORRESPONDENTS’ VIEWS. 
Yield of Egos by a Hen. —It is said by 
somo that a hen has no more than about 200 
embryo ovee; others have raised the number 
to about 600. This variance itself refutes the 
theory, for if one hen is supplied with more 
than another, why should not another have 
still more. I have a Light Brahma hen, a 
pet, now eight years old. She has laid nearly 
1,000 eggs already, and so far has laid G!5 
this season. She is now sitting and will rear 
a brood as she has done already eight times, 
and then go on laying again. I intend to keep 
this hen as long as she lives, and am keeping 
a strict account of her eggs. A 10-year old 
Brown Leghorn has been credited with 1,200 
eggs. The facts I believe are that the growth 
of the embryos in the ovaries is continuous as 
long as the hens are sufficiently nourished 
and their vigor is not impaired by old age. 
Old age is a relative term and not a fixed per¬ 
iod of life. Some animals are born old, that 
is, as weak naturally as others are which have 
reached the vory verge of mature vigor. Ani¬ 
mals, too, vary in the vigor of their reproduc¬ 
tive ability. Goldsmith Maid, the noted 
trotter,hud her first colt after she was 25 years 
old, and yet most mares have long passed the 
period of fertility at that age. Fowls differ 
equally in this respect both individually and 
by breeding. But it is opposed to all analogy 
to believe that any female animal has just so 
many and no more ovui existing at any time, 
and it is one of the facts in the case that the 
ovai begin to bo formed only as the ago of 
puberty approaches. H. 8. 
Wohk of the Ruhal. —Permit me to con¬ 
gratulate the Rural upon the issue of the 
two thousand-and-first number. It is difficult 
to comprehend the immense amount of 
labor required to prepare, set up, and print 
2,000 editions of' so large a paper as the 
Rural, and it is perhaps even moro diffi 
cult to appreciate the immense power for 
good, the beneficent influence of these 
editions. It is safe to say that no paper 
has had so greut an influence with the agri¬ 
culturists of America, been so largely quoted 
from or so often imitated as the Rural. Hun¬ 
dreds, yes thousands of men have had the 
Rural indelibly stamped upon their minds 
in the old homestead. I have been told dozens 
of times: “Oh! the Rural is a line paper; 
my father took it when I was a boy,” or: 
“The first paper I remember was the Rural 
Nkw-Yohker.” 1 have no doubt it is true, as 
you say, that hundrods of its present readers 
have taken it from its beginning in 1850, and 
it is perfectly safe to suy that so long as it 
maintains its present high standard, they will 
continue to tako it. Its influence increases 
and its reputation improves as the years pass, 
and it is, as it always has been, the leading, 
the pioneer agricultural journal of America, 
if not of the world. May it continue the good 
work of educating and olevating the Ameri¬ 
can farmer until it celebrates its three or four 
thousandth number. J. H. 
Experiment In Raising Ciieai* Potatoes. 
—I am trying to see how cheaply I can raise 
an acre of potatoes and have a good crop I 
manured the land, by fencing temporarily 
with barbed wire a long plot and making a 
lane in which the cattle sleep at nigh. The 
land was poor and gravelly with some loam. 
I plowed the land with a two-horse plow and 
thoroughly harrowed it. Then 1 com¬ 
menced in the middle of the strip with a 
gang plow and threw a back furrow and 
dropped my potatoes in the furrows; then I 
followed with the gang plow which covered 
the potatoes. I replowed the land and so on 
until I had the field planted. When the pota¬ 
toes come up, I shall put on a heavy spike- 
tooth harrow and harrow until I kill all weeds 
and make the ground flue. Then if the bugs 
are bad or the potatoes do not come evenly, 
I will cover the vines with the plow and re¬ 
harrow them. Whatever else is necessary to 
be done can be done with a cultivator. The 
rows are 27 inches apart, and the potatoes 
were cut in two-eye pieces 15 inches in the fur¬ 
row.—I am much interested in the potato trial 
in which the Rural is engaged and hope that 
it will demonstrate that potatoes can be raised 
on poor or good land in a wet or dry season if 
proper fertilizers are used and they get proper 
cultivation. f. q. 
Johnsville, New York. 
In Favor of Seedling Fruit Trees.—I 
have a number of peach trees that have come 
up from the pits. They are growing where 
they sprang up, and have not been budded or 
pruned. They bear freely every year, and 
the peaches are good. Adjoining them I have 
a number of budded trees, “nursery stock,’' 
They have a weak, unthrifty appearance, and 
only bear a few ppaches, but usually of excel¬ 
lent quality. Of the two, the trees that have 
come up from the pits are vastly more profit¬ 
able and satisfactory. My experience with 
cherries is about the same. The semi-wild va¬ 
rieties are fairly loaded with small but delici¬ 
ous fruit, while the “fancy” varieties only 
bear occasionally, and then they are often de¬ 
stroyed by rotting before they ripen. Does 
not the average farmer make a mistake in set 
ting out fancy varieties and then permitting 
them to live as best they can? Will not a 
scrub among fruit trees often thrive and do 
well while the thoroughbreds dwindle and 
die? Another thing 1 have learned. It does 
not pay to destroy the old trees about the 
homestead, until you are sure of a certain and 
better supply from the newer trees. I have 
seen old trees which boro considerable quanti¬ 
ties of fruit dug up to make room for new va¬ 
rieties which did not come into bearing for 
many years afterward. peach pit. 
Killing and Dressing Poultry.— Fowls 
should be killed by a blow on the head, bled in 
the roof of the mouth, quickly pickod, and 
then hung up in a cold room to harden. If 
the French method of preparing poultry wore 
given a fair trial in this country, much good 
might come of it. Nearly all poultry in France 
is shaped by means of trusses and bands; i. e , 
the fowl when still warm, after being pickod, 
is pressed, breast downward, on a molding 
board, and by the above-mentioned appliances 
fastened securely until it is set or hardened. 
This presses the breast bone in and leaves the 
fine plump appearance for which French poul¬ 
try is so famous, besides agreeably facilitating 
the task of the carver, no projecting breast¬ 
bone interfering with the knife. I believe the 
secret of obtaining good prices for poultry de¬ 
pends principally on the manner it is prepared, 
coupled, of course, with superior quality. 
Washingtonville, N. Y. j. H. D. 
In Favor of Red Cedars —I am glad to 
notice the fact that the Rural has decided to 
leave the Rod Cedars on the five-acre hillside. 
I have of late become enamoured with the long - 
neglected and despised Red Cedar. Three years 
ago I set a row of them along the north side of 
my lot for a wind break. They were little 
seedlings, say a foot high. Now they are 12 
to 15 feet high and form an sxcellent wind¬ 
break and will soon bo largo enough for posts. 
I shall put out small seedlings between the 
lai go trees this year to take the place of the 
larger ones when they are fit for posts There 
is no better wood for posts, except of course 
locust, than the common Red Cedar, and posts 
are becoming more and more valuable every 
year. Wire may take the place of rails but 
wooden posts will always be in demand. 
_ RURALI8T. 
About 40 years ago a Rev. Mr. Goodrich, 
then chaplain of the State Lunatic Asylum at 
Utica, N. Y., published a pumphlot on the 
cultivation of the potato, in which liestrongly 
advocated “deep planting and no hilling.” 
This fact may interest some who are now dis¬ 
cussing the same subject. n. R. L. 
“Every one wants somo effective insecti¬ 
cide,” says the American Florist, “and one 
grower gives kerosene emulsion as his partic¬ 
ular vanity in this line. The formula is as 
follows: ten ounces whale oil soap, one quart 
water, two quarts kerosene. Boil the soap in 
the water until it is thoroughly dissolved; 
then stir the oil in. It will be taken up en¬ 
tirely by the.soap aud water, forming a com . 
FROM SARAH E. HOWARD. 
FROM MISS E. BECKER. 
The girls I have known who left homes in 
the country to work in cities did so because 
they must go somew here to earn a living, 
and a chance to do so seemed to offer there. 
If the work could have been brought to their 
country homes, I think they would gladly 
have accepted it and the choice to remain at 
home. 
The girl who will allow her mother to do 
all the work while she amuses herself, must 
have been brought up to be both lazy and 
selfish, and the mother is to blame. Often 
as this is brought up against girls. I believe it 
is, in the majority of cases, a libel, among 
farmers’ daughters at least. I can recall 
many a farmer’s home where the daughters 
were trained cooks and housekeepers as well 
as butter-makers and gardeners: whose beds of 
choice flowers made possible the rare bou¬ 
quets that brightened the homo. In some 
cases the daughter was a skilled apiarist; but 
I do not recall one home where the mother 
was a drudge for her daughters, unaided and 
unappreciated. 
Is the “city chap” particularly attractive 
to the country maid? I never thought ho 
was. Easy, pleasant manners are always at¬ 
tractive and these the city youth is supposed 
to possess. Yet the city chap, unused to the 
country, declares himself off his “native 
heath’ by his greenness there just as quickly 
as Dhe country boy does the same thing on his 
first trip to the city. 
I never heard a farmer’s daughter say she 
would not marry a farmer: I have heard other 
country girls say it, but ten times to one their 
families were not half as independent as their 
neighbors—the farmers. Anybody can see 
there is a chance for every member of a farm ¬ 
er’s family to be made useful, and some peoplo 
dislike being made useful to such an extent 
that thoy are actually lazy. This may ex¬ 
plain why such remarks are made. Lately I 
was told that a writer in somo farm paper had 
said she would as soon “commit suicide as 
marry a farmer.” I think it would be wiser 
for any farmer to commit suicide than to 
marry a woman who so manifestly lacked 
the sense to inuke him even a commonplace 
kind of a wife. 
Having always lived on a farm, I ought to 
know the dark and the bright side of farm 
life, and I must declare that the allurements 
of city life never could tempt mo to give up 
my country homo. Every business that is good 
for anything is mado so by careful, painstak¬ 
ing, constant application— drudyery, if you 
will call it so; and this is no more true of the 
farmer’s work than it is of the merchant’s or 
the professional man’s. 
FROM MRS. C. J. SPEAR. 
Farmers’ daughters seek employment in 
cities in order to get pay for their work, not 
because it is either amusing or fascinating. It 
is but natural for every one to wish to see 
some adequate and suitable return for labor 
and time given. Many farm mortgages here 
in New England have been paid by the earn¬ 
ings of daughters who went to the mills and 
factories of Massachusetts to work. 
Mother-love is full of unselfishness, tender¬ 
ness, and self-sacrifice. I remember hearing 
one of those kind mothers say, as she watched 
from her bed of sickness the brave efforts of 
her young daughter to carry on the work she 
had been obliged to relinquish: “Dear child, 
I cannot bear to see you made such a drudge.” 
Soon, too soon, the burdens fall upon the 
young shoulders! Lot the morning of life bo 
clear and bright that it may ever remain a 
charming picture of memary. Then, as a 
groat statesman said, “The past is secure.” I 
know children should be taught to work, and 
Ignorance of the world and just dissatisfac¬ 
tion with their surroundings are two great 
causes why farmers’ daughters seek city em¬ 
ployment. The average city boarder who, 
during summer, pervades many a farmhouse, 
with her fashionable wardrobe, ease of man¬ 
ner, white hands, apparent leisure and but 
half concealed contempt for “country clod¬ 
hoppers,” seems vastly superior in the eyes of 
the country girl to herself and to anything 
she can ever be if she stays whore she is, 
and she thinks if she could only go to the city 
she’d have “so much better chance of being 
somebody.” Experience frequently teaches 
her her mistake, but experience, though a good 
school-master, does charge high tuition fees. 
Besides, the surroundings of many farmhouses 
and the scanty privileges granted the daugh¬ 
ters as to education, recreation,pocket-money, 
etc , are not conducive to contentment. The 
world moves, and the farmer’s daughter of to¬ 
day cannot, ought not, to bo satisfied with 
what was sufficient for her mother. Surely 
the sons are not expected to be and to have no 
moro than their fathers—why should the 
daughters lag behind? 
The fault is in both mother aud daughter if 
the former does the household work, and is the 
result of injudicious kindness in the mother 
and thoughtless selfishness in the daughter. I 
once heard a loving, but short-sighted mother 
say: “I do all the work myself and let Nellie 
have a good time while she’s young—she’ll 
see work and trouble enough yet before she 
dies.” A few years later I heard “Nellie,” 
then in a home of her own for whose manage¬ 
ment she was wholly unfitted, bitterly regret 
what she termed her mother’s folly in not 
having trained her to housewifely duties. 
The glamour that surrounds the city chap is 
produced by a city tailor’s well fitted cloth¬ 
ing, his own easy manners and assurance, and 
his really belter acquaintance with men, 
women and tho world than country “chaps” 
possess, as a general tiling. 
The reason why many country girls assert 
that they will never marry farmers, is because 
they see more of farmers’ wives, and tho “dark 
side” of their lives, than of tho lives of tho 
wives of men of other occupations. Then, too, 
the third-rate novel in which the heroiue 
is ever depicted as constantly arrayed in 
evening attire, never doing any dirty or dis¬ 
agreeable work, and never by uny possibil¬ 
ity marrying a common farmer, unless his 
rich uncle dies and leaves him a fine city 
property, has much to do with forming many 
country girls’ opinion on matrimony. A nov¬ 
elist who would write wisely and well of farm- 
life—not too highly idealized, nor yet made 
contemptible—would be a god-send to the far¬ 
mers of tho future; for, of course, they’ll be 
in great measure what their mothers and sis¬ 
ters and wives make them. 
MR8. 1*. A. CROZIER. 
Country girls go to the cities for the money 
they may earn. So far as I know they do not 
often do so if the farmer is in easy circum¬ 
stances and they are well provided for at 
home. Wages for domestic help are higher 
in the city than farmers feel able to pay, so 
those who “work out” can often earn more 
thore, but sometimes at a greut risk. Urge tho 
girls not to go to town to work in public 
houses. Mothers are, of course, loving and of¬ 
ten indulgent, and girls do not always take 
readily to housework or at least love it till 
they are made to. Perhaps tho mother is 
sometimes careless in not impressing upon her 
daughter’s attention tho idea of her selfishness 
in leaving to her mother tho hard tasks. The 
school authorities may perhaps well bear part 
of the blame when they so load down the 
