CANADIAN REASONS FOR THANKFUL¬ 
NESS. 
A. HOLLAND. 
Thanksgiving! —For what? is the question 
nine-tenths of the farmers in Eastern Ontario 
and Western Quebec are asking of themselves; 
for we Canadians also are to have a Thanks¬ 
giving Day by proclamation of the Governor- 
General. Those who are not sufficiently 
orthodox to be thankful for anything and 
everything are asking, is it because we had a 
late spring, asevere drought that stunted and 
shriveled vegetation, destroyed the pastures, 
and starved the cattle; cut-worms that ate our 
early vegetables; an early frost that killed 
the corn, destroyed tender garden plants, and 
time in April. I don’t know how this plan of 
wintering cabbages would work in a more 
variable winter climate. 
I have built a wooden silo in the corner of 
my barn this season, entirely above ground, 
and I propose to let the Rural know some 
time in January how a 92-ton silo, costing 
only $150< preserves corn fodder where the 
mercury often goes to 30 below zero and stays 
there for days at a time. The silage is cov¬ 
ered with inch boards, on top of which is a 
layer of black muck four inches deep. On 
that muck 1 have stored 4,000 heads of celery, 
expecting that it will keep until New Year’s, 
if not marketed by that time. 
Ottawa, Canada. 
SOME ILLINOIS NEIGHBORS. 
the balance of the feed did not come until in 
October, and all was shipped from Boston, 
Mass., instead of-. Now there must be 
some fraud somewhere as I can get no satis¬ 
factory answer about this delay. So I wrote 
to the Rural New-Yorker, and was re¬ 
ferred to you, so I have this day shipped you, 
per Adams Express, samples of the feed, also 
a sample of the poultry powder for analysis to 
get at the market value. Now I believe that 
it is a fraud, and if so, what can I do about 
the matter ? Must I pay the note, and if so, 
can’t I get the people arrested for conspiracy?” 
A circular, which was forwarded with the 
letter, makes the usual vague claims of great 
merit for this feed, and presents the following 
analysis by B. F. Davenport, M. D., Prof., 
of Analytical Chemistry in the Massachusetts 
College of Pharmacy: 
Water. 13.12 
Oil and fats. 6.66 
Soluble hydrocarbons, such as sugar, 
gum, starch, etc.48.89 
Nitrogenous substances, such as 
albumen, etc. 13 52 
Woody fiber. 8.57 
Mineral Salts..] .924 
100.00 
A cursory examination of the samples sent 
showed them to consist, to at least a consid¬ 
erable extent, of bran and corn meal. 
Chemical analysis showed the materials to 
have the following composition, the average 
composition of wheat-bran being added to the 
table for comparison: 
‘•The Con- 
“Concentrated 
“Wheat 
cent rated 
Feed.” 
Poultry 
Feed ” 
Bran.” 
Water. 
. 8.72 
10.52 
12.00 
Ash 
. 11.05 
7.89 
5.60 
Total Protein. 
. 16 29 
16.33 
16.10 
Crude Fiber.. 
. 4.32 
4 19 
8 40 
Nitrogen - f r e 
e 
extract . 
. 54.75 
56.62 
53.70 
Fat. 
. 4 87 
4.45 
4.20 
100.00 
100.00 
100 00 
The results of chemical analysis confirm the 
indications given by the appearance of the 
samples. The composition does not vary 
greatly from that of wheat bran. An addi¬ 
tion to the bran of a small proportion of corn- 
meal to decrease the proportion of crude fiber 
and increase that of nitrogen-free extract, to¬ 
gether with the addition of a small amount of 
fodder, like gluten meal, to keep up the per¬ 
centage of protein, would give a mixture hav¬ 
ing substantially the composition shown 
above. So far as the indications of chemical 
analysis go, this feed is worth about as much 
per ton as wheat bran. 
It is very evident that our correspondent 
has been badly swindled, and it is extremely 
doubtful if behas any practicable remedy. His 
note will probably turn up in the hands of in¬ 
nocent third parties, and it will have to be 
paid, and it is not likely that a suit against 
the company would offer him any redress, as 
it.is quite probable that the firm has by this 
time dissolved. 
Uue of the unfortunate results accompany¬ 
ing the great benefits which have arisen from 
the application of science to agriculture in re¬ 
cent years is exemplified by this case. Hav¬ 
ing heard much of the benefits resulting from 
a proper choice and judicious mixture of fod¬ 
ders, farmers are anxious to reap the benefits 
of our increased knowledge in this direction 
without putting themselves to the pains of ac 
quiring the knowledge itself. Hence there 
have arisen divers prepared stock foods, in 
which it is claimed that, by scientific applica¬ 
tion of the laws of animal nutrition, a mixture 
has been made which is perfectly adapted for 
certain purposes, and that all the farmer has to 
do is to use it according to directions. There 
are all grades of these prepared feeds, from 
articles like the one described above, evident¬ 
ly manufactured simply for swindling pur¬ 
poses, to those which are sold at a price but 
slightly above what the same materials would 
cost separately. 
The case described above is, of course, an 
extreme one,-and it would seem that a little 
reflection would convince any one that no one 
can afford to pay such a pric6 as $120.00 per 
ton for cattle feed or $666 per ton for poul¬ 
try feed. The case is not so plain, however, 
with some of the articles now offered in the 
market. They are in many cases made of 
good materials, and are nearly, if not quite, 
worth the price asked, and so are on a par 
with many so-called special fertilizers. The 
underlying principle in both cases, however, 
is a vicious one. The appeal is substantially 
to the farmer’s ignorance. He knows that 
there are advantages arising from the appli¬ 
cation of scientific principles to stock feeding. 
He does not know what these principles are or 
how they are to be applied, and the dealer in 
prepared foods offers to save him the trouble 
of learning. If the farmer accepts this offer 
he puts himself blindly into the hands of the 
maker of the feed. He may get his money’s 
worth, or nearly so, or he may pay for his 
feed twice what it is worth, On the other 
F. GRUNDY. 
prevented grapes from ripening; a wet har¬ 
vest that sprouted the grain, rotted the straw, 
and created such a scarcity of fodder that 
hay is already selling at $17. to $19. per ton? 
If these are mercies to be thankful for, it will 
require of us a degree of optimism that would 
be creditable even to Mark Tapley. 
Cheap Horses. —If the horse-dealers who 
buy for the markets of the Eastern States, and 
who usually make their appearance at this 
season of the year, visit Ottawa any time 
during the next six weeks, they can pick up 
some rare bargains. Every farmer has horses 
to sell. Some must decrease their stock be¬ 
fore winter sets in at all hazards, and will 
have to take for them whatever the buyers 
choose to offer. Ours are a serviceable class 
of general-purpose horses, with plenty of 
bone and sinew; tough as whalebone and with 
plenty of “go” in them. They do not look as 
well as the sleek, corn-fed Western horses, 
but they will outwork them two to one. 
The Potato Crop has been a failure here 
for two consecutive seasons. We paid from 80 
cents to $1. per bushel for seed last spring, and 
every one who had potato ground planted 
largely, expecting good prices for the early 
crop. Until the middle of June the prospects 
were in favor of a very large yield; but, 
strange to say, in many places where the tops 
seemed most luxuriant the tubers were few 
and small. I had a fairly good crop on a 
limestone gravel, treated the previous season 
with a heavy coat of black muck and 200 
wagon loads of peat ashes. The tops threw 
out a grand mass of bloom, but, strange to 
say, there was not a solitary potato apple to 
be found in the field. The seed was drilled 
in with an Aspinwall planter. In order to 
get the cultivator to work early, the field being 
very dirty, I mixed a gallon of beans with 
the fertilizer dropped in the drills with the 
fertilizer attachment. The beans were up in 
a few days, marking with a bright green line 
the exact location of the potatoes in the drills, 
so that the cultivator could work full width, 
and save a lot of hoeing. By that means I got 
ahead of the weeds, and the first night’s frost 
killed the beans just as the potato plants be¬ 
gan to push through the soil. The experiment 
was a very satisfactory one, and I propose to 
adopt the same plan again next spring. 
Harvesting Cabbage. —I was much inter¬ 
ested to-day in observing how my neighbor, a 
successful market gardener, harvested his 
crop of 50,000 large, solid-headed cabbages. 
Three men with crotched sticks, such as in our 
early days we lifted a water bucket from the 
well with, took two rows each and jerked the 
cabbages out of the ground as fast as two men 
could stand them head downward to drain. 
They had done in about three hours a job that 
I expected would take as many days. In the 
afternoon the cabbages were ppcked in pits 
nine inches deep—merely stood heads down— 
and a quantity of broken cabbage leaves was 
thrown on top of them to preserve them 
through the winter. I examined such a 
pit last spring where there were some 10,000 
cabbages, and found that they came out 
as fresh and crisp (denuded of the outer 
leaves) as they were when put down in the 
fall. The covering of cabbage leaves, pressed 
down by the weight of the snow, had 
formed a covering almost air-tight, and when 
the frost went out of the ground it left the 
cabbage uninjured. Of course, we have a 
steady dry winter here. When the snow 
Comes in December it comes to stay until some 
When I look over the premises of some of 
my neighbors and note the duck puddles, and 
slop holes, and chicken roosts, and decaying 
trash in close proximity to the well and 
kitchen door, and then see the girls chewing 
gum by the hour, and the boys swallowing 
quarts of cider, I feel inwardly that they 
ought to be mighty thankful that their an¬ 
nual doctors’ bills do not exceed over half their 
income. 
Again, when I note among my neighbors 
the extravagant and wasteful methods of 
feeding stock, the reckless manner of using 
tools, the wagons, plows, mowers, planters, 
etc., etc., lying about the yards and going to 
ruin as fast as wind and weather will permit, 
I think they ought to be doubly thankful for 
a soil so generous and a climate so salubrious, 
that, despite their shiftlessness, so many of 
them are able to live well, clothe themselves 
comfortably and retain possession of a home. 
We hear much about the extravagance and 
waste in the average farmer’s kitchen, but 
while I must admit that there is room for im¬ 
provement in that department, I am well sat¬ 
isfied that the wastage therein is scarcely a 
drop in the bucket compared with that con¬ 
stantly going on about the farms and yards. 
It is safe to trust the average farmer’s wife 
to look after the odds and ends about the 
household and to prevent all avoidable loss or 
waste, if he will do likewise about the farm 
and yard. Very rarely do we find the wife 
carelessly wasting the earnings of a consider¬ 
ate husband. For all of these things the tiller 
of the soil ought to be exceedingly thankful. 
Come to think it over, my neighbors have 
more things to be thankful for than I could 
enumerate in a column of the Rural. Let 
us be thankful that they can be. And then 
let us be thankful that we know so much more 
than our neighbors do, and that our remark¬ 
able sagacity is almost unfathomable. 
Christian County, Ills. 
“THE CONCENTRATED FEED.” 
PROFESSOR H. P. ARMSBY. 
“ The spider and the fly;" the “ fly ” not 
being “fly” steps right in and is bled to 
the tune of $345; bran and corn meal at 
33^ cents a pound! Another swindle from 
the “Hub;” “innocent parties ” in a 
swindling transaction ; a “blind pool ” in 
feeding stuffs ; will the warning be heeded? 
The following letter recently received at 
this station, explains itself: “About the 
middle of August I received a letter from the 
Pearl Mills Co., Boston, Mass., describing a 
concentrated feed, and offering me the exclu¬ 
sive sale of the same. I wrote them that I 
would like to handle these goods, and so on 
August 31st, a man called at my place repre¬ 
senting said company, and I accepted the 
agency for three counties, and he showed me 
a R. R. receipt dated at-for two tons of 
feed and fifteen cases of poultry powder, so I 
bought the above goods. 
Two tons of feed at $120 per ton.$240.00 
Fifteen cases—30 doz. of poultry pow¬ 
der, at $4. $120.00 
$360.00 
Less freight from Keokuk, la. 15.00 
Balance.$345.00 
So I paid $10 cash, and gave my note for 
the balance, $335.00, payable in 60 days’ time. 
But the goods didn’t come along, so I tele¬ 
graphed to-on Sept. 9th, and got an an¬ 
swer that no such goods had been there. So I 
wrote to them several times, and finally the 
last week in September one ton of feed came, 
and the fifteen cases of poultry powder and 
hand, if he buys single known articles of feed 
he knows what he is getting, and whether the 
price paid is reasonable, and can apply such 
knowledge and judgment as he has to their 
use. The great objection to all these prepared 
feeds lies, not so much in the liability to fi¬ 
nancial loss in their purchase, for this may be 
guarded against by the aid of the chemist, as 
in the fact that when they are used the ap¬ 
plication of the farmer’s own intelligence and 
good judgment is so far precluded. How can 
he rationally use an article of which he knows 
neither the components nor their proportions 
nor the composition of the whole mixture? It 
is not to the point to say that good results 
have been attained by the use of these feeds. 
Such is undoubtedly the case, but in all prob¬ 
ability equally good results could have been 
obtained with familiar materials as cheaply 
or, most likely, more cheaply. The matter 
may be summed up in this way: is the farmer 
on the whole likely to do better by working 
with known materials, by applying such 
knowledge as he has to their use,and by trying 
to learn more, or by delegating his thinking 
to the manufacturer of a mixed feed, who, 
however upright he may be, has for his prime 
object money-making? To ask the question 
is to answer it. 
The Pennsylvania State College Agricult¬ 
ural Experiment Station. 
ABIES (TSUGA) CANADENSIS 
MACROPHYLLA. 
(SEE FIRST PAGE.) 
The Large-leaved Hemlock is not very well 
known and is rarely seen outside of collections 
of conifers which make some pretentions to 
variety. The leaves are twice as broad as 
those of the Common Hemlock and of a much 
darker color. It is of slow growth and never, 
in so far as the R. N.-Y. is informed, attains 
to a size that places it outside of the limit of 
dwarf evergreens. The specimen shown in 
our photographic illustration was purchased 
and planted some 12 years ago, the plant then 
being a foot or more in hight. Two years 
ago, it was necessary to transplant it again to 
escape the damage which contact with other 
trees would have caused. As a consequence of 
this transplanting, it is not quite so thickly 
clothed with its naturally massive foliage as it 
otherwise would have been. It is now six feet 
high, ot a regular conical form, inclined to 
bushiness, except at the base, where a 
thicker growth may be induced in a 
year or so by cutting back the tips of 
the thriftier branches. This tree grows in a 
moist part of the Rural Grounds where it has 
never sustained the slightest injury either 
Fig. 394— Page 796. 
from heat or cold. It has not the feathery 
grace of its parent, the Common Hemlock. 
In fact, it is rather a somber, stocky little 
tree, that is valuable because of its decided 
differences from other hemlocks. It is one of 
those evergreens of small stature which, be. 
sides being valuable as a member of all col¬ 
lections, is especially desirable for home- 
grounds of small extent—say from a city lot 
to an acre. 
As we have before remarked, an interest, 
ing companion to this Large-leaved Hemlock is 
the Small-leaved Hemlock, the leaves of which 
are as much smaller than the species, as those 
