<888 
Last Thursday, an old farmer named Jacob 
p Reiff, living near Norristown, Pa., was 
swindled out of $10,000 by a couple of confi- 
! dence men, by a trick fully exposed here sev- 
j er al times by the Eye-Opener. The telegraph 
tells us that Reiff is nearly seventy years of 
s a ge, and says a man who gave the name o^ 
Cooke called at his farm and represented that 
he desired to purchase some of Reiff’s farm 
j land. Reiff accompanied him in a carriage to 
look over the land, and while driving they met 
a stranger. After a brief conversation the 
farmer was induced to join in a game of cards 
with the men. Reiff regretted that he did not 
have much cash with him, but said he had 
bonds in bank. Cooke then proposed to drive 
to Norristown to get the bonds out of bank. 
Reiff readily assented, and after procuring 
the bonds, which were ten first mortgage bonds 
of the Columbus, Cincinnati and Midland Rail¬ 
road, valued at $1,000 each, they returned to 
the stranger and proceeded with the game of 
I chance. Through some pretext the two men 
shortly afterwards left Reiff, after having 
slipped the bonds from the box, and he did not 
discover, until some hours later, that his box 
had been emptied of its treasure. 
How often has not the Eye-Opener warned 
I Rural readers against land booms, especially 
those in Florida and Southern California. 
! Many of the Florida booms have already burst 
upand those of Southern California are col¬ 
lapsing. This is the way a San Diego news¬ 
paper, which aided in booming its section, 
tells of one of these bursted booms:—“Eight 
restaurants closed in one day, 16 clerks dis¬ 
charged from one dry-goods store, 1,600 empty 
rooms in lodging-houses, hotel rates reduced 
$2 per day, shaving reduced from 25 cents to 
10, coffee from 10 to five. Real-estate agents 
leaving by the score.” In a short time the 
“town” will be as desolate, solitary and for* * * 
lorn as any of the numerous “boomed cities 1 ! 
in the Pennsylvania oil regions a score of 
years ago. 
A new form of an old swindle is being 
worked on the farmers in various parts of the 
country. The victim is induced to buy some¬ 
thing or other on long time, his note being all 
the payment required. But naturally he ob¬ 
jects to give his note and have it at once dis¬ 
counted for cash. “ Oh, we’ll keep the note,” 
says the sharper, and thereupon he writes 
across the face vff it “ Not transferable.” It 
soon turns up, however, on the hands of an 
“ innocent” party who insists that the farmer 
must pay it. An e added to “ not ” makes it 
“Note transferable.” 
The latest dodge of lightning-rod peddlers 
in this section is this—They call on some well- 
to-do person that is very penurious and ask to 
rod some building that they find without rods, 
stating that their price is 75 cents per foot, but 
to introduce their rods they will give 75 or 200 
feet as]the case may be,or nearly enough to rod 
the building. If they get a job to rod the 
building they lay aside the stipulated amount, 
then proceed to put on their own rods on the 
building at 75 cents, when the rod is not worth 
over 15 to 20 cents, put up. 
The parties expected to have the amount 
given them put on their building and enough 
of the peddlers’ beside to finish the job, which 
would be cheap if such were to be the case. 
The hope of getting something for nothing in¬ 
duces them to bite. An acquaintance of mine 
got caught for 80 to 90 dollars recently as 
above stated. a. k. smith. 
Pickaway Co., Ohio. 
To Several Inquirers.—T he New York 
Standard Pant Company is an arrant fraud. 
.There is some doubt as to the 
character of Avon Park, Florida; but as long 
as there is the shadow of a doubt we would 
strongly advise that nobody should have any¬ 
thing to do with it except after personal ex¬ 
amination on the spot, or on the recommenda¬ 
tion of a thoroughly reliable person who has 
investigated the matter..So far as 
we can learn from personal inquiries and from 
what has been said in several Chicago papers, 
the HomeXibrary of the Windy City really of¬ 
fers no special advantages to members, and is 
to that extent unreliable. Under the guise of 
a philanthropic concern, it seeks business for 
purely business ends. 
Concerns Censured - —Under this head the 
Eye-Opener will, from time to time, give the 
names of concerns which he has seen de¬ 
nounced in other papers, but which have not 
been investigated from the Rural Office:— 
The firm of Malena Co., Warrior’s Mark, Pa., 
which offers to pay $8 per 1,000 for distribut¬ 
ing circulars, is styled a humbug. 
Prof. F. C. Fowler, of Connecticut, is de- 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
nounced as a quack.Neither the U. 
S. Medicinal Co., of this city, nor the Union 
Supply Company of Chicago, is considered 
reliable by several newspapers . 
Have nothing to do with the Van Graef Med¬ 
ical Company, of this city. 
The “Mutual Helper” a catch-penny paper 
published at Zainsville, Ohio, offers to give a 
town lot free to each “subscriber.” This looks 
very much like the swindles of Bain, the 
“chicken sharp,” who hails from the same 
place. The London Ribbon Agency of Jer¬ 
sey City, N. J., offers cheap ribbons for 20 
cents. If you try the concern you may get as 
much ribbon as you can get at the corner 
store for 10 cents; but you will certainly get 
no more.The Teachers’ Association of 
State Street Chicago, is refused au indorse¬ 
ment by the Western Rural. 
I desired to grow some seedlings of the 
large, purple-flowered raspberry commonlv 
known in this section as the “Thimbleberry,” 
—the Rubus odoratus of botanists—for the 
purpose of testing the quality of the fruit 
under cultivation. I have been acquainted 
with the plant as it grows wild on rockv bill- 
sides, where it forms but one or two slender 
canes that bear few leaves and fewer flowers. 
It has been an agreeable surprise to find that 
under culture the plant makes a very robust 
growth, producing many canes which are 
densely covered with large, deep green leaves. 
Some of the* plants bloom abundantly and 
with their showy pale-purple flowers form a 
shrub of which no lawn need be ashamed. I 
am surprised that this plant has not received 
m ore attention. 
Some of the canes are setting numerous 
fruits, but as they have not before borne, it 
remains to be seen what the quality will be. 
[An objection to this plant is that it suckers 
too freely. The berries are usually more or 
less imperfect and of poor quality. Eds.l Mr. 
Beckwith has made several attempts at hy¬ 
bridizing this plant with the common rasp¬ 
berry and blackberry, some of which are 
apparently successful. 
* * * 
I was curious to test the so called Alpine 
strawberries of which we read so often in old 
horticultural works. For this purpose seeds 
were procured from Messrs. Vilmorin & Co., 
of Paris,of three varieties named respectively 
the White, Red and Bush Alpine strawberries. 
The plants of the latter soon winter-killed and 
as they produced no runners were lost—not, 
however, until they had borne sufficiently to 
show the quality of their fruit. None of the 
varieties have the least value except as curiosi¬ 
ties, the fruit of all is so small, soft and in. 
sipid—inferior to that of many of the wild 
strawberries of our field. 
* * * 
The “Hautbois” strawberries, though 
much better than the Alpines, are too far in¬ 
ferior to the better common varieties to be 
worthy of cultivation. The plants fruit 
abundantly and the berries are of a fair size, 
but the latter are soft and devoid of sweetness, 
while they have a peculiar musky flavor that 
js admired by few. This experience may per¬ 
haps save some enthusiastic amateurs the ne¬ 
cessity of repeating the experiments. 
* * * 
In a bed of seedling gooseberries, in which 
the plants are grown from our native varieties, 
none of which are troubled with mildew here, 
many mildew so badly as to be worthless. 
This clearly shows that all native varieties are 
not exempt from the disease. The law of 
natural selection has probably spared in the 
wild state only those varieties that were able 
to cope with it. 
* * * 
By the way, there are reasons for hoping 
that we have a remedy for the gooseberry 
mildew in sulphide of potash, sometimes called 
“ liver of sulphur.” Last season a row of the 
Industry gooseberry mildewed so badly that 
the crop was almost a complete failure. This 
year half of this row has been sprayed with a 
solution of sulphide of potash at the rate of 
half an ounce to a gallon after every rain, 
commencing as soon as the leaves began to 
form. The result is that the sprayed part of 
the row is free from mildew and the plants are 
making a vigorous growth. On the other 
portion they are badly infested and are much 
stunted. Two rows of the bed of seedlings 
above mentioned were also sprayed with the 
same solution. These two rows present a very 
different appearance from the others, the 
plants in them having a more vigorous ap¬ 
pearance and deeper green foliage. 
We could afford to be at considerable 
trouble in spraying, if by this means we can 
grow the finest English gooseberries in per¬ 
fection. 
* * * 
Three years ago, at Dr. Sturtevant’s sugges¬ 
tion, a bed of Sharpless strawberries was 
planted out and heavily mulched with coal 
ashes. The object was to see if this material 
would not act beneficially in keeping down 
weeds. It has done this in a marked degree, 
but this is not all. The yield from the plants 
has been more abundant than from another 
bed of the same variety that has received ex¬ 
cellent culture of the ordinary kind. The 
plants have been almost entirely free from 
blight, though the Sharpless blights badly 
here when grown in the ordinary way. I 
should have stated that the bed has received 
no culture since the mulching except to re¬ 
move the few weeds that were strong enough 
to grow through the three inches of coal 
ashes. e. s. goff. 
Experiment Station, Geneva, N. Y. 
* * * 
Speaking of big yields of potatoes, a gentle¬ 
man living near me (in King Co.,) raised, two 
years ago, from 12 acres, without any fertilizer 
(in virgin soil), 8,000 bushels. Last year was 
poor for potatoes, but this season promises the 
greatest yield ever produced on Puget Sound, 
Hay, grain, and everything are looking fine. 
My apple grafts set this spring, are many of 
them,now 20 inches high with four months to 
grow. j. m. OGLE. 
Puyallup, Washington Ter. 
XPffnum ’5 tDmrk. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
Taking one’s summer vacation at home is 
an excellent idea suggested by a writer in 
Daughters of America. She tells of an over¬ 
tired housewife who, declining to go away eD_ 
tirely, took a restful vacation at home. She 
rose early, overlooked her house, and put 
things in order, and then spent the remainder 
of each day in restful idlenesss, either on the 
shady porch or in her ov<n room. She 
troubled herself about nothing, simply taking 
the rest her worn-out nerves required. She 
was relieved from the necessity of “ dressing 
up” or attempting to entertain others, and 
there is no doubt her sensible holiday was 
much more beneficial than a turn out visiting, 
where she would have been compelled to exert 
herself. The only objection to such a rest is 
that the house mother is apt to find difficultv 
in dismissing her cares while at home. She 
is apt to feel like good Mrs. Bagnet, in “ Bleak 
House,” who was always made an honored 
guest on her birthday, while her young 
daughters prepared the feast. She always 
suffered intensely on such occasions, being 
obliged to sit still in her best gown while the 
rest of the family performed the household 
duties with more energy than skill, and the 
rules of the day prevented her from offering 
any assistance, even when she saw things 
going wrong. 
* * * 
That picture of the bright side of farm life 
is what we believe in; doubtless there is a 
dark side to everything, but the best thing 
we can do is to try brightening it up. 
Somehow it seems as if farmers’ families 
receive many false ideas about their work. 
But the very same ideas of false gentility 
prevail in towns. Wo see this by the num¬ 
ber of young men seeking clerical work 
rather than trades. Why a clerk with a 
salary of $10 a week should be looked 
upon with more consideration than a 
good carpenter with $8.50 a day—both being 
equal in character—is a difficult problem to 
solve. But the girl who, on a farm, would 
contemptuously declare she would never mar* 
ry a farmer would, if transplanted to the town 
show an equal contempt for the mechanic. 
It is a species of snobbery, which ought not 
to find a place in the United States, where, as 
Mr. Howells happily puts it, every ordinary 
American has at least the opportunity to be¬ 
come an extraordinary American. 
* * * 
Talking of these false ideas of refinement 
reminds us of another mistake, and that is the 
general respect paid to fine clothes. If some 
of the girls would take courage to wade 
through the profundity of Carlyle’s “Sartor 
Resartus,” they would learn a good deal about 
the philosophy of clothes from Herr Teufels- 
droch. But though only the unthinking are 
impressed strongly by fine clothes, we all 
have a prepossession in favor of an agreeable 
exterior, and we think every woman ought to 
consult the becoming, if it only takes the form 
of a ten-cent calico. Indeed, we have seen a 
cheap gown make a more expensive one look 
dowdy by contrast, merely because it was 
tasteful and becoming, while the other was 
not. We women ought all to be just as pretty 
PimUatHW 
Holstein-Friesian Cattle, 
An authoritative article by Mr. S. Hoxie, 
the specialist in this field, with illus¬ 
trations, is published in Harpers Maga¬ 
zine for August. This number contains 
Conclusion of H. Rider Haggard’* Story — 
Charles Dudley Warner’s Studies oi the 
(ircat w est.- Serial Novels by William 
Dean Howells and William Dlack.-Mid¬ 
summer Trip to the West Indies. By Lal- 
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Child.-The Montagnai*. By C. II. Farn- 
ham.—A. Chiswick Ramble.—Short Story.— 
Poems.—Editor’s Departments, Etc. 
AND 
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HARPER’S CATALOGUE, comprising the titles 
of nearly four thousand volumes, will be sent by 
mail on receipt of Ten Cents for pcstage. 
Published byHARPEIt & BROTHEItS.Nevv York. 
1 iic ociuner oc i ayior 
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BROCKNER & EVANS, 
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SEED WHEAT. 
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DEITZ’S LONGBERRY, KELIABLE, RED RUSSIAN : 
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Samples of each, with price, history, and description, 
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Address SAMUEL WILSON, 
Mechauicsville, Bucks Co., l*a. 
as circumstances will permit, and good taste 
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“A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.” 
I am inclined to think that Shirley Dare, 
through one ot her bright syndicate letters, is 
responsible for having caused a flood of news¬ 
paper advice and literature on the subject of 
“how to become beautiful.” The Cleveland 
Leader asserts that, by beginning early 
enough, any child can be made beautiful by 
the time it reaches the age of- 17. If this re¬ 
fers to beauty of form and feature, I fear 
that this usually well-balanced organ has 
been betrayed into making a rash statement. 
Even in the case of a squint, or a tendency 
to crooked limbs, it must be admitted that 
art and science can do much if applied in 
time, but you can’t transform a child with 
small eyes, set close together, an undeniable 
pug nose, and a retreating chin, into a gazelle' 
