THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
£ox t !)t lloimg. 
TALKS BY UNCLE MARK. 
This is a presidential year. Such years are 
always exciting. The election of a President 
is a great event in the world’s history. It is 
greater than a king’s coronation. No wonder 
people are excited during a presidential can¬ 
vass. It is a great thing to be singled out by 
00,000,000 people as the one man fit to direct 
the country’s business. People talk about the 
“divine rights” of kings and queens. To my 
mind, there is nothing about this royalty that 
can compare for a moment with the great gift 
that the people give to the President. A voter 
assumes a responsibility. I can remember 
how I felt when I cast my first ballot. It seem¬ 
ed as though I was helping at making history, 
and so I was. 
The law says that a man must be 21 years 
old before he can vote. Such being the case 
our boys and girls may wonder why I talk to 
them about voting. The wonder of the girls, 
1 guess, is greater than that of the boys. Well, 
I look upon politics as something every man 
and woman should be interested in. I don’t 
like to see people giving up their work and 
running around after an office, but my idea is 
that the country is safest when the people at 
large have a clear idea of what they want, 
and know how to get what they want. We 
are making history at a rapid rate. The boys 
and girls of to-day must keep their eyes and 
ears open so that when they get old enough 
to have some weight in politics they can tell 
how party lines have changed since this 
campaign. It is a great thing to be posted 
on political history. I find men who can tell 
about every campaign we have had since 1840. 
When I hear these men talk I realize how 
little I actually know about the past of politics. 
So I propose to know all I can about the 
politics of the present. Knowledge I pick up 
in this way will be valuable to me. So I want 
every one of my boys and girls to study 
politics. Let us fully undersland what the 
people are voting about, what it means to be 
a Democrat and what it means to be a Repub¬ 
lican or a Prohibitionist or anything else. 
In these times a person should have some 
well defined position in politics. He should 
belong to one of the three great parties and 
understand why he belongs there. There are 
enough points of difference in the policies of 
these parties to enable any reasonable person 
to stand for what he considers right. The 
point is for one to be sure that he really un¬ 
derstands just what a party represents. We 
mustn’t guess at it or depend entirely upon 
what others say. We must use common sense 
about it. This is an age of reading and study, 
not of blind following the advice of somebody 
else. What I believe is that the platforms of 
the three great parties are broad enough to 
enable any reasonable person to find a 
standing-place. Some people like to belong 
to a fourth party—the Mugwumps. These 
people like to carry independence to a strain¬ 
ing point. Some of them say they will al¬ 
ways vote for the “best man”—that is, they 
propose to put individual excellence, or what 
they think is individual excellence above 
party. Others make a principle of voting for 
the party that is out because they think it is a 
good thiDg to change bauds every four years. 
The Mugwumps have some very good men 
in their ranks, but on the whole I think most 
of them carry their ideas too far. Where one 
is voting for county officers, for members of 
the legislature or for State officers, it often 
happens that we are forced to go out of our 
party, but how many Presidents have we ever 
had who did not, sooner or later, reflect the 
sentiments of the party that elected them? 
On the whole, I do not much believe in being a 
Mugwump in a presidential campaign, because 
1 consider the principles of the party of more 
importance than the candidate. 
I am not much of an alarmist myself. 
Alarmists seem to think that unless their 
particular candidate can bo elected the 
country will be ruined. I consider that 
nonsense. After all we may say about 
the power of our President or of Congress, 
the people run things in this couutry. They 
are not going to elect folks to ruin them, you 
can be very sure. If a policy that we think 
is disastrous should be started, it is not the 
thing to give up and say everything is lost. 
The point is to try arid make others see that 
our way is better Right prevails. Some¬ 
times it is a long time coming to the front, 
but the history of world shows that it is 
bound to come sooner or later. So let us 
study these political questions out and get 
what seems to be the right of it, and then 
work as hard as we can for that. We 
must remember first of all that we are farm¬ 
ers, and that we must look to our best inter¬ 
ests in deciding which way we are to vote. 
There is a great complaint in some parts of 
the country that farmers are not always 
justly treated in politics. The fact is, that 
when the people neglect studying out these 
political questions, a lot of fellows get into 
the harness and turn politics into a self!-' 
game for advancing their own interests. TV > 
must stop such work by knowing wh e 
we stand aDd what we want. These politi¬ 
cians take us for ignorant people who have to 
be told what we want done. We must stop 
that game and begin the work this year. I 
shall have more to say about this later on. 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Mark : I have never written 
to you, but have started to do so several 
times. I wish to be a Cousin. I have been 
watering my flowers this evening. I have 
a garden seven by five feet. I have several 
kinds of flower seeds planted. To day I tried 
an experiment in my garden. It was to cover 
the earth with grass which I cut with a grass- 
cutter. My object in doing this was to see if 
it would keep the moisture in the ground, 
and, therefore, keep my plants from drying 
up so soon. It may bo a failure, but as the 
old rhyme says, “Try, try again” will suc¬ 
ceed. Some of the Cousins may think it 
strange for a girl to be talking about experi¬ 
ments. But I am a farmer’s girl and do not 
think it any more out of place for a girl to 
experiment, tbau it is for a boy. I am 11 
years old. Papa has taken the Rural for 
four years and likes it very much. We have 
225 chickens this year. Papa shot at a crow 
but did nothit him. Hoping that my letter is 
not too long, and that it will not find the 
waste-basket, I remain, your Niece, 
Leominster, Mass. grace m. putnam. 
[No, indeed, your letter is not too long. We 
are glad to get it. I am glad you tried the 
experiment. It will probably succeed if you 
put on enough of the grass. That is what is 
called mulching. You will notice that when 
you put a board on the ground the space 
under it is damper than that surrounding it. 
It is the same when sve put down bay or any 
other thick substance. Such substances pre¬ 
vent evaporation from the soil. I am glad you 
are experimenting, and I do not think it at all 
out of place for girls to experiment. It would 
be better if more of them would so.—u. M.] 
Dear Uncle Mark: I am going to school 
now, but I will soon have to stay at home, as 
we will soon have to sow our grain and I will 
have to drive team. Three years ago I bad a 
team of oxen and now I have a team of colts. 
We send our milk to the factory and I have 
to carry it. We have wintered about 40 hens. 
We work about 250 acres of land. I have a 
South Down ram and call him General Mid¬ 
dleton,and he is the boy that can make you run. 
I am now 12 years old, and we have taken the 
Rural as long as I can remember. 1 was just 
looking at the Rural to-night and saw some 
pretty' fowls. I guess I will close. 
Yours truly, HUGH horne. 
Wolf Island, Ontario. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I have four head of 
cattle and one mare colt. 1 like to go to 
school. The teacher gave picture cards the last 
day of school. I got three; one for good con¬ 
duct, another for not being tardy, another 
to remember her by. I hope I can see my 
letter in print as it is the first letter 1 have 
written. From your Nephew, 
SAMMY J. DAVIDSON. 
[I guess the last card is best.—u. m.] 
Dear Uncle Mark: I have never written 
to you before. I live on my Grandfather's 
farm. 1 have one dog of my own and Pa has 
one. I have a sheep, 10 ducks and a goat. We 
get ten cents a dozen for eggs now. I get one 
dozen of eggs out of every 10. I have made 
over $2 since the first of March. We have 
begun to plow for corn. Would sheep and 
goats make a good cross? Pa takes the 
Rural and likes it very much. I like to read 
the letters from the Cousins very much. 
Yours respectfully, fay hall. 
Thorntowu, Indiana. 
[No, sheep and goats would not do at all.— 
u. m.] __ 
Dear Uncle Mark: I am a little girl of 
seven years old. 1 do not go to school be¬ 
cause Mamma says I am so little. We have a 
horse named John, and a big black Newfound¬ 
land dog. We call him Carlo. 1 have two 
sisters; one is Aunie-the other Jenuie. Jenuio 
would like to be a boy. I would like to be a 
Cousin. I hope you will print this, it is my 
first letter. Your Niece, burtie lonsdale. 
Chestnut Hill, Pa. 
Dear Uncle Mark: It has been such a 
long time since I wrote to you that I almost 
forgot how. 1 was sick in bed this winter, 
a lmost three weeks, was in bed on my birth¬ 
day, but I got some presents; one was a corn- 
popper. I don’t like popped corn very well. 
I had diptheria; so had one of my sisters, she 
was worse than I was. We are not going to 
have turkeys this year, we cannot do much 
good with them. I had 32 last summer, to 
begin with, and took as good care of them as 
I could. Some of them got lame, and I had 
to carry them after the hen. But with all my 
care and trouble 1 only raised nine or 10. We 
can do better with chickens. I have a 
Guernsey calf almost a year old. Her name 
is Rosebud of June. But I still want a nice 
dog. It is cold and windy, and this morning 
there was ice on our back porch. We had 
“The Blizzard” and did not get our mail for 
several days. We were sick then. We got a 
lot of Easter eggs, one was very pretty, it had 
a glass in one end, we could look inside and 
see some children and a little dog. We have 
a new horse, his name is Sambo, he is black 
I am nine years old and weigh 94 pounds with, 
out my coat. maogie sharpless. 
Chester Co., Pa. 
Dear Uncle Mrak: The Rural came this 
morning; and after studying that cartoon of 
a “Country Girl,” 1 was very indignant until 
I saw that the boys were promised one equally 
as severe. No doubt the girls are guilty of a 
love for finery and carry it to excess if allowed, 
but show me the boy who could not spend 
just as much on guns, fishing material, and 
nobody knows what else if he had his way. 
Take, for example, a boy with a rifle: if inter¬ 
ested in it at all he can use ammunition enough 
to pay for a good deal of finery, and still 
some people accuse the girls of being the most 
expensive creatures living. I don’t think it’s 
fair at all. I expect to hear an indignant 
protest from some of the boy Cousins for the 
above, but think the girls will agree with me 
in it a farmer’s daughter. 
Fon du Lac, Minn. 
[And you can put me down as agreeing with 
you too. I am opposed to monoply, and 1 don’t 
want to have the girls get all the blame. The 
boys deserve just as much as the girls do, and 
they will get their full share of it, never fear. 
u. M. 
$U$c*Uan*au.s( 
Scrofula 
rrobably no form of disease Is so generally dis 
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Almost every individual has this latent poison 
coursing his veins. The terrible sufferings en¬ 
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cannot be understood by others, and their grati¬ 
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ishes a well person. The wonderful power of 
Hood’s Sarsaparilla 
in eradicating every form of Scrofula has been so 
clearly and fully demonstrated that it leaves no 
doubt that it is the greatest medical discovery of 
this generation. It is made by C. I. IIOOD & CO., 
Lowell, Mass., and is sold by all druggists. 
IOO Doses One Dollar 
Veterinary Department. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
SESSION 1888-80. 
OPENS OCTOBER lsf, 1888. 
For Catalogues address 
It. S. HUIDEKOPER, Dean. 
UNI VERSIT Y ol tb e ST A T E ol N EW YORK 
AMERICAN 
VETERINARY COLLEGE 
■ 139 & 141 West 54th Street, New York City. 
Chartered under General Laws of the State of New 
York, 1875, and by special act of the Legislature In 188G. 
The regular Course of Lectures commenced in Oc 
tober. Circular and information can bo tiad on ap¬ 
plication to DR. A. LIAUTARD. V.S., 
Dean of the Faculty. 
CHICiAGrO 
VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
INCORPORATED 1883. 
Facilities for Teaching and Clinical Ad¬ 
vantages Unsurpassed. Session of 1888-u 
commences October 1st. |£5?“l , 'or Catalogue and 
further information, address the Secretary, 
JOSEPH II roil E8, M. It. C. V. S., 
and 35:10 State Street, Chicago. 
Pennsylvania Agricultural Works, York, Pa. 
Farqahar’s Standard Engines and Saw Hills. 
Send for Catalogue. Portable, Sta- 
*'* » A — “ ttonary, Traction and Automatic En¬ 
gines a special tj. W ar ranted equ at or 
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r made. 
'Addreai A. B. FABQEHAB A SON, York, Pa. 
Corn Shellers, Fodder Masticators, Grist Mills,etc. 
TARQUHAR VIBRATING SEPARATOR. 
SEND FOR CATALOGUE. 
Wonderful 
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t§f -M 
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BELCHER & TAYLOR AGR’L TOOL CO. 
BOX 75, CHICOPEE FALLS, MASS. 
ITHACA Hggfi 
Hand-Dump mid Self-Dump Patterns. 
OVER 100,000 IN USE. 
ITHACA PORTABLE ENGINE 
Economical, Strong:, and Safe. 
ITHACA BROADCAST SOWER 
COMPLETE iu itself, or as Attachment to ltuke. 
SUPERIOR COODS^at Low Prices. 
US?”AGENTS WANTED in unoccupied territory. 
Address the Manufacturers. (Mention this paper ) 
WILLIAMS BROTHERS, 
ITHACA, NEW YORK. 
Keystone 
saves 
T'fAE.jilEN) 
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purs on a 
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\ ' ADDRESS AVcNTt ON THIS PAPCR, 
KEYSTONE JflFG.fe Sterling I IIS. 
DEDERICK’S HAY PRESSES. 
6 # the customer 
-s’ 1 ' n cv ( ,'V' ’ jffy keeping the one 
Order on trial, address for circular and location of 
Western and Southern Storehouses and Agents. 
P, K. DEDERICK &. CO., Albany, N. Y. 
PEABSON’8 
IT 
AT BOTTOM PRICES. 
SOLD FOR CASH DIRECTLY TO CONSUMERS. 
Save agents’ profits, and secure Reliable and Lasting 
FERTILIZERS. 
Highest recommendations where tried side by side 
with other standard brands. 
Send for Catalogue. 
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amt fouXttjj. 
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Scotch Colley Shepherd Dog* and 
Fancy Poultry. Send for CaUlogae 
W.ATLKK BCUPKX A CO.PfclU ** 
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%t saoend oiass uvaU wattes 
