V 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
FROM THABDEUS SMITH, OF PELEE ISLAND, 
CANADA. 
My experience with the Niagara grape has 
not been long enough to enable me to form 
very positive opinions in regard to its merits. 
I planted 200 vines in the spring of 1884 and 
my knowledge of the grape comes from my 
observation of these vines and their fruit. My 
present opinion is that the Niagara is a hardy, 
strong-growing, productive vine, producing 
fruit of medium quality in large clusters and 
berries. In comparison with the Concord, it 
is not as vigorous a grower, nor as free from 
rot and mildew. I do not think that it will 
prove to be as popular over so large an area 
of country; but for the present it is likely to 
be the most popular white grape upon the 
market. It is very hardy—neither bud nor 
vine has ever been injured by cold here. It 
is a strong grower, but not as vigorous as 
the Concord, Empire State, and some other 
varieties. It is not entirely free from rot 
and mildew. My vines were somewhat 
affected by both this year, but were not 
injured enough to materially affect the amount 
of the crop. I gathered a little over a ton 
of sound grapes from my 200 vines on about 
50 rods of land, or about at the rate of four 
tons per acre. Some of these would have done 
for shipping for table grapes, but as the bad 
ones would have had to be picked out, and the 
market was poor, I did not ship any. 
The variety has not fulfilled the promises 
made for it by its introducers. They 
promised too much, probably too much for 
any grape. I consider the quality ODly second 
rate. But this is somewhat a matter of taste, 
as I have known persons to prefer to eat the 
Concord rather than any other grape, and 
there are some who like the sweetness of the 
Niagara regardless of its strong “fi xy” flavor. 
A correct or cultivated taste can never give, 
preference to the Concord or Niagara 
over such standards of excellence as the 
Catawba, Iona and Delaware. The Catawba 
here, and some earlier grape,like Moore’s Early 
or Worden, are more profitable; but this 
might not apply to other places. 
Province of Ontario. 
FROM SEC’y E. WILLIAMS, OF MONT¬ 
CLAIR, N. J. 
The Niagara has fully met my expectations, 
for it was an untried venture when I planted 
and attended wi h some misgivings as all 
novelties are, but it has succeded so well with 
me that I have no reason to regret having 
been called a lunatic for making my little 
venture. It is true the Niagara is not per¬ 
fection in every respect as a white grape, (I 
did not expect that, neither do I expect to 
ever find a grape of any kind that will do 
equally well in all soils and situations in this 
broad land of ours); but it comes nearer that 
position than any I have tried, and, with me, 
stands head and shoulders above its compet¬ 
itors introduced at the same time. I con¬ 
sider it the most valuable white grape I have, 
and in comparison with my other white 
grapes, as regards*size and beauty of berry 
and cluster, etc., all others are nowhere. The 
Concord has many competitors—strong ones 
too. The Niagara vines are apparently as 
hardy and vigorous as those of the Concord, 
but probably a little more liable to mildew 
and rot; but I have had Concords that rotted 
fully as badly as the Niagaras. These 
troubles—rot, and mildew—are the most 
serious difficulties I have to contend with; yet 
I have fought them with considerable success 
thus far, and I have hopes that we shall 
ere long be able to entirely overcome 
them. The hardiness of vines—which is gen¬ 
erally understood to mean the ability to pass 
a winter of low temperature—is often depend¬ 
ent on freedom from mildew, as a mildewed 
vine will not stand the exposure that one will 
that has not been affected with this fungus. 
I cannot say positively whether the Niagara 
has come up to the claims made for it origin¬ 
ally, without referring to the promises made 
at the time of introducing it; but if every 
novelty in the fruit line came as near “ filling 
the bill” as the Niagara grape has, there 
would be little cause for complaint. I have 
said it was not perfect. Its chief fault—aside, 
of course, from its liability to mildew and 
rot—is its tendency to drop from the cluster 
soon after reaching maturity. Of course, this 
dropping is sometimes due to mildew, oftener 
perhaps than we suspect, but there appears to 
be, when it is fully ripe, a weakness of the 
grapes in holding on the peduncle. I some¬ 
times think this is due m a measure to a condi¬ 
tion of the vine which may be overcome, but 
I have not yet experimented sufficiently to 
decide. I have none that is more profitable. 
In my collection of over 50 varieties in full 
bearing the three best red, white and blue are 
Brighton, Niagara and Worden. This has 
been my opinion for the past three or four 
years, and I can’t get beyond it yet. 
CHRISTMAS VEGETABLES. 
WILLIAM FALCONER. 
Frequent scarcity of good vegetables in the 
country ; their abundance and excellence 
in cities ; small profits for producers there, 
owing to competition and to the neces¬ 
sity of prompt sales; why supplying private 
customers in cities is generally impracti¬ 
cable ; local vegetable growing for country 
villages a growing and profitable busi¬ 
ness; a supply] there creates a demand; a 
notable case in point—from two acres of 
garden heavily mortgaged, to six acres 
free from mortgage and with abundant 
prosperous surroundings; a like success 
easily possible in every village of the 
country. 
I T is a fact that many country folks are 
pretty ill off for green vegetables at 
Christmas time. True, they have cabbage 
in abundance and some celery and these are 
all very good in their way, but they do not 
furnish variety enough; our appetite craves 
for variety and our health is profited by it. 
In the matter of a variety of green vegetables 
in winter, city folks are a good deal better off 
than are country people, for, in addition to 
the vegetables furnished by our local market 
gardeners, fresh green vegetables are sent 
hither all winter long from Florida, and the 
other Atlantic Southern States. There is a 
current idea that city vegetables are stale, 
and that if one wishes for really nice, good, 
fresh vegetables he must go out into the 
country to get them. Well, nothing will dis¬ 
pel this idea better than a visit in the early 
morning to some of our metropolitan veget¬ 
able markets. Here will be found not only a 
large variety of all manner of seasonable 
vegetables, but everything is fresh and of 
superior quality and can be got at almost 
starvation (to the grower) prices. The stale 
vegetables get stale after they leave here. 
Truck gardeners get little enough for prime 
produce, but for inferior vegetables they 
wouldn’t get enough to pay them for gather¬ 
ing and hauling them to market, let alone 
growing them. Don't regard the prices 
charged consumers by retail grocers as any 
thiDg approaching the prices the poor garden¬ 
ers get. 
The market gardeners around large cities 
must seek a city wholesale market; their 
produce is large and perishable and they 
can’t hold it over nor dilly-dally about selling 
it; they must sell it in bulk and just as soon 
as it is marketable. It is no use talking of 
drumming up a private connection and dis 
posing of the crop directly to the consumers; 
if a gardener had 20 sons in the business with 
himself this might be all right; but he himself 
could not attend personally to every little 
detail of the business. The milkman has his 
regular customers for^his milk, so too may 
the gardener for his vegetables, but customers 
don’t want vegetables every day nor do they 
want the same sort of truck all the time, and 
to supply what they want takes too much 
time, patience and expense for the city mar¬ 
ket gardener. Then what about the hotels? 
Hotels go to market and buy at wholesale 
prices. Then how much better off would the 
gardener be for selling to them? Besides, no 
one gardener grows all the[sorts of vegetables 
required by our hotels, nor would any hotel 
be likely to need everything the gardener has 
upon his wagon. This being so, what’s the 
use of either of them making two bites of a 
cherry? Why shouldn’t both go to the whole¬ 
sale market? But in country towns and vil¬ 
lages distant from large cities the case is dif¬ 
ferent. There is profit—a big profit—in gard¬ 
ening at home. Don’t growl about your 
sleepy village; don’t complain because every¬ 
body has a garden of his own and won’t want 
anything from anybody else’s garden; don’t 
scare yourself because there isn’t a vegetable 
now sold in your village. Just consider these 
questions. In your village this day 
Can you buy a dish of fresh spinach for 
your Christmas dinner? 
Can you buy a dozen heads of prime celery? 
Can you buy a dozen white-hearted let¬ 
tuces? 
Can you buy a dozen milk-white cauli¬ 
flowers? 
Can you buy a peck of Brussel’s sprouts? 
Can you buy a bunch of fresh, crisp rad¬ 
ishes? 
Can you buy a bunch of fresh young pars¬ 
ley? 
Can you buy an eight months (only) old 
stick of horse-radish? 
Can you buy a quart of green chives? 
Can you buy a quart of fresh mushrooms? 
Can you buy a bunch of green thyme, or 
green sage, or green mint or green chervil? 
If you can buy any of these, is it grown 
right in your village or is it brought there 
from a distant city? If it isn’t grown in your 
village, don’t you think it would pay some of 
you to grow it there? And if you cannot buy 
it at all in your village, don’t you think your 
village is pretty far back? Yes, and it is just 
your own fault. You can grow and supply 
your villages with these things, and you can 
make a deal more money by doing so than you 
can by growing corn and potatoes. 
There is nothing fictitious about these vege¬ 
tables at this time of year. I have every one 
of them here right now, and so can you have 
them at your home and make money out of 
them, and that, too, with no great exertion. 
And you haven’t got the great expense of a 
team a whole day off at a city market, nor do 
you get the short wholesale figures for your 
produce; no, you get a fair retail price. 
But who would buy these vegetables if you 
had them to sell? Every mechanic and mer¬ 
chant in your village and even your next-door 
farmer-neighbor. You needn’t shake your 
head and say you know differently—that I 
‘•don’t know the kind of folk in these parts.” 
We all know that supply creates demand. If 
these vegetables are not presented to your 
people, can you expect them to run around 
looking for them? No, for they won’t do it. 
But you take half-a-dozen milk-white cauli¬ 
flowers, fresh cut this morning, half-a-dozen 
solid-hearted lettuces, white, fat, crisp, and 
plucked to-day, half-a-dozen heads of celery, 
white-bleached to the tips, and so tender and 
crisp that when you’d bite a leaf one could 
smell it half a rod away; do you think there 
is a family in your village who wouldn’t crave 
that basketful of vegetables for a Christmas 
treat? 
But let me come right home to our own 
village here. Everybody hereabout has a 
garden and grows vegetables more or less, and 
at our principal stores vegetables in their 
season are exposed for sale the year round. 
Some of these are grown by the farmers around 
and sold to the .stores, and what isn’t raised 
hereabout has to be brought hither from the 
city, both supply and demand being moderate 
and modest enough. Four years ago one of 
our workmen having saved a few hundred 
dollars, bought two acres of land in the mid 
die of the next village to this. The land cost 
him $1,000 an acre. He paid $200 down and 
gave a mortgage for the balance. Then he 
built a $500 house upon his land. And he set 
in to grow all manner of fruit and vegetables 
depending upon the village market alone. 
He worked from daylight till dark and even 
with lamplight. It was a little hard at first 
and the market was slim. It is only four 
years since he bought the place, but he now 
owns six acres there and has built himself a 
barn and greenhouses and many hot bed 
frames. He has a horse and wagon and em¬ 
ploys several men. His land is full to over 
flowing of everything likely to be required 
for furnishing the village folks’ gardens— 
fruit-trees, grapevines, roses, etc., and three- 
fourths of his land is devoted to vegetables, 
He has formed a wide connection among the 
village people and he is yet unable to supply 
the demand—yes, the very demandjtbat didn’t 
before exist. He grows prime stuff and a 
good variety of it, and takes it around in his 
wagon and peddles it. Nothing is left over, 
everything is sold, and the people are asking 
for more. The people know now where they 
can get good vegetables, .fresh-gathered the 
day they buy them, and they see and seek 
many a vegetable they never before passed a 
thought upon; they know the day the garden 
er comes around, for he has his days and his 
routes and his customers as the milkman or 
butcher has his, and they prepare for him ac¬ 
cordingly. 
An d this man is making money fast, yes, 
more money than any farmer round about 
here. The people all know he is making 
money and they look upon him as a god 
send to the village, and now wonder how on 
earth they got along before he started busi¬ 
ness here. And apart from the mature veg 
etables he raises and sells in the spring time, 
he raises any quantity of egg plants, peppers, 
tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, and 
other plants for sale. This too is a blessing to 
our village folks. Many of them much prefer 
to buy the young plants than to bother raising 
them themselves, and when they know they 
can get them right here, good and cheap, 
they plant freely and sorts they did not be¬ 
fore try to grow. But isn’t this bad for the 
gardener? Not a bit of it. He gets his chief 
supply in before and after the glut. He uses 
his brains as well as his hands. And now 
every oue who wants anything in the garden 
line, naturally goes to*,this place. People are 
drawn to it, not only to get what they want, 
but also to 6ee it; it is one of the most in¬ 
teresting spots in the neighborhood, always 
beautiful, neat and clean, and always bloom¬ 
ing, and everyone who comes almost always 
sees something that he would like to have at 
home, and as everything is for sale, it means 
some pennies more. 
Now in every village in the country haven’t 
we got one or more farmers who could add 
just such an adjunct to their present business? 
You don’t know how, you haven’t got ihe ex¬ 
perience, are lame excuses nowadays. You 
can raise cabbages, and sweet corn, and 
carrots, and beets and a host of other vege¬ 
tables, just as well as anybody. And any one 
who knows this knows enough to start well. 
Use your brains; don’t rush into the thing till 
you know the road: carefully note your suc¬ 
cesses and failures as you go along; be deter¬ 
mined and persevering, and every step you 
take will be suggestive, and at the end of a 
couple of years I guess you will have learned 
from your own practice more than any one 
else could teach you. 
Queens Co., L. I., N. Y. 
CORRESPONDENTS’ VIEWS. 
Japanese Buckwheat Once More.— In 
the spring of ’87 I bought one pound of 'Japan- 
ese buckwheat, sowed it on July 3, and har¬ 
vested and thrashed 4)4 bushels of very plump 
seed. This year, I sowed half a bushel and 
thrashed 30 bushels, and this though it has been 
a very poor year for buckwneat. One of my 
neighbors sowed about the same amount of 
ground with gray buckwheat and got only 
one bushel and three quarters. As for bees 
not working on it, my bees worked on it con¬ 
tinually both years. f. a. bly. 
Rising City, Neb. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
IllinolH. 
Aledo, Mercer Co., Dec. 24.—We have had 
very fine weather for the last two months. 
Corn is all gathered in very good condition 
and is selling at 23 to 25 centsptr bushel; oats, 
23 to 24; not much wheat is raised here; it 
solis at 80 cents. There is a good demand for 
stock cattle at 3 to 3)4. There are a good 
many fat cattle here which have not been 
sold yet; prices are unfavorable for the holder. 
About half our fat hogs have been shipped at 
from 4)4 to 4% cents ptr pound. All kinds of 
stock look well and there is plenty of feed. I 
hear some complaints of scarcity of water, 
for we have had very little rain th s fall so 
far. The ground is frozen slightly at present. 
C. N. 
Indiana. 
Harlan, Allen Co., Dec. 23.—We have had 
a very fine fall this year for doing work. It 
has been dry and warm. There has nr t been 
rain enough to start the under-drains, al¬ 
though there have been some light showers, so 
that wheat looks tolerably well. We have 
had no snow yet, except some little flurries. 
I am going to try to raise some potatoes on 
the Trench System next summer. s. m. 
Iowa. 
Lima, Fayette Co., Dec. 22.—Farming here 
is mixed. Very few sheep, and a good many 
horses are raised. We farmers have done 
better this year than during tbe two last, as 
the crops have been better. We have had 
more rain, but not enough. Corn was a large 
crop, but some of it is soft. It is selling at 25 
cents per bushel. Oats good in quantity, but 
not in quality: selling at 18 to 20 cents per bush¬ 
el. Potatoes good in quantity aud quality- 
25 cents per bushel. There is a large number 
of creameries in this county. Butter is worth 
20 to 25 cents per pound; eggs 10 to 20 cents 
per dozen. We have had a splendid fall and 
winter so far; there has been no snow to 
speak of, and the weather has not been so 
cold as one expects at this time of the year. 
If we had more rain it would be good for the 
wells and springs. P. E. J. 
Hama*. 
Wright’s P. O., Ford Co.—Three years ago 
I left the eastern part of this State for the 
southwestern part, and filed on 40 acres of 
homestead land two and a half miles from 
Fort Dodge and five miles northeast from 
Dodge City, near A. T. Soul’s great irrigating 
canal. Nothing to speak of has been raised 
in any of the western counties of the State 
for the two past years, and it has been fuliy 
