vious year, or where sawdust is in the manure, 
tends to produce scabby potatoes. I never 
have scabby potatoes after a crop of veget¬ 
ables or on sod plowed under and well rotted. 
One-half of one of my fields is composed of 
clay loam; the other half of sandy loam. 
The former is likely to produce scabby pota¬ 
toes; but I have never found any in the 
latter. 
E. E. B., Norfolk, Va. —I have been very 
much interested in the articles on pages 612 
and 664 in the Rural for 1888, on defects, etc. 
in mowers. I think they contain valuable 
ideas for farmers, and wish we could have 
more. Why not have a “Machine Special” 
describing new tools and contrivances, as well 
as the defects in old sorts, and how to remedy 
them, etc. ? Let the farmers tell what im¬ 
provements they want in their manufacture. 
Prof. S. W. Johnson, New Haven, Conn. 
—Apropos of the “Concentrated Feed” recent¬ 
ly exposed by Dr. 4msby in the Rural New- 
Yorker, an analysis and estimates of it will be 
found in the report of the Connecticut Agri¬ 
cultural Experiment Station for 1884, pages 
111 et seq. 
“ The Rural New-Yorker is collecting 
from 100 to 500 rewards or souvenirs, to be 
given to a corresponding number of the most 
successful contestants, and proposes to extend 
the number of souvenirs as far as possible, 
and in this way help to secure a general in¬ 
terest and enthusiasm throughout the entire 
potato-growing country. Hundreds of its 
women subscribers are sending in their names 
for the “contest,” while the number of gifts 
or souvenirs for the best yields already 
amounts to nearly 81,000. The committee to 
examine the reports and to award the prizes 
will be made up of persons (either men or 
women as preferred) whose names shall be 
a sufficient guarantee of strict, impartial 
action. The attention of World readers is 
called to this contest because it is a very 
laudable project, and one sure to bring de¬ 
sirable results in many ways.”—N. Y. World. 
During the present Congress 635 new 
public offices have been created involving an 
expenditure of 8720,000 for salaries, while the 
salaries of 50 officers have been increased by 
813,352. During the same session 405 public 
officers were practically dropped by omission 
to provide payment of their salaries, thus 
saving 8470,028 to the Government; while in 
the case of seven officers salaries were reduced 
81,487. 
The United States Beet Sugar Indus¬ 
try. —Claus Spreckels vigorously opposes the 
proposed reduction in import duties on 
sugar, and says that the compensating 
bounty of one cent per pound on home-pro¬ 
duced sugar, to be granted by the Republican 
tariff bill, isn’t enough. His California beet 
sugar factory cost 8400,000, of which 845,000 
were paid as duty on machinery imported 
from Germany simply because no suitable 
machinery was made here. His will serve as 
patterns for future machinery to be made at 
home. His factory at Watsonville, Cal., has 
a capacity of 350 tons of beets every 24 hours; 
and it has run up to 379. Operations began 
about Oct. 20, 1888, and ended on Dec. 20. 
There were received at the factory 15,000 tons 
of beets from 1,000 acres, averaging 15 tons 
to the acre. The farmers received, on an 
average, 85.52 per ton for their beets,or 882.70 
for the product of an acre. The highest pro¬ 
duct trom the best cultivated land was 40 tons 
per acre. In Germany the best beet crops 
average from 20 to 25 tons per acre; but 
there the land is better tilled and, more¬ 
over, it is fertilized at a cost of 815 per acre, 
every three years; but experience has shown 
that the rules for cultivation and seeding in 
Germany are not suitable for the soil and 
climate of California. Only one-third of the 
seed used in the former is needed in the latter. 
While the average saccharine contents of Cal¬ 
ifornia beets was 11 % per cent., that of Ger 
man beets ranges from 10 to 14 per.cent.; but 
in some instances California beets contained 
upwards of 20 per cent of sugar. The results 
of the season’s work at Watsonville were 1,640 
tons of sugar, which netted a profit of 829,930 
or nearly 820 per ton, representing a return 
of seven per cent, on the outlay for machinery 
and buildings, without allowing anything for 
the wear and tear of the machinery. 
The duties on sugar average as high as 76 
per cent, and the new Republican tariff bill 
proposes to cut them down to 37 per cent, and, 
as an equivalent for the reduction, it offers a 
bounty of one cent per pound to domestic pro¬ 
ducers. This would be 820 per ton, so that 
THE BUBAL J31W-Y0BMEB. 
the home producer would have an advantage 
of 67 per cent, over the foreign producer, in¬ 
stead of 76 per cent, as at present, so that 
there would still be a reduction of nine per 
cent, against an average of 12 per cent, pro¬ 
posed by the Democratic Mills bill. 
This reduction Mr. Spreckels thinks would 
put a stop to any further progress in beet 
sugar manufacture in this country, as the 
profits now are less than seven per cent, on the 
capital invested, if allowances are made for 
deterioration of the plant. For the fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1S87, we imported 1,459,076 
tons ot sugar; while in the following year the 
imports were only 1 235,872 tons—a decrease 
of 223,000 tons, which Mr. Spreckels attributes 
to the increase of domestic sugar. As the 
duty remains to-day, he is confident this 
country can profitably produce all the sugar 
required for home consumption. This would 
be a fine thing for farmers wherever sugar 
beets could be grown for 882.70 per acre! 
Cutting Potatoes for Seed.—B ulletin 
No. 13 of the Vermont Experiment Station 
gives an account of the result of planting dif¬ 
ferent sized seed-pieces of potatoes. The fol¬ 
lowing table fully explains it. The rows w'ere 
50 feet long and three feet apart, the seed two 
feet apart in the rows: 
As usual in such trials, the results are very 
contradictory. 
“TheWomen’s Potato Contest.” —The fol¬ 
lowing is taken from the N. Y. World of 
January 2d: 
“The Rural New-Yorker proposed, some 
three months ago, that its lady readers should 
enter info a potato contest of their own. In 
the way of suggestion, it was proposed that 
the plot be 33 feet square, or just one-fortieth 
of an acre. This is a very convenient size and 
shape. The plot may be larger, but not 
smaller. Each contestant will choose her 
own method in every particular, the kind and 
quantity of fertilizer or manure, the variety 
of potato, the distance apart to plant, etc. etc. 
It will not, of course, be required that the 
contestant do all of the actual work herself, 
but merely that it be done under her direc¬ 
tion and supervision. The aim will be to 
produce the largest quantity of merchantable 
potatoes on the chosen area at the least cost: 
the standard of what constitutes a ‘merchant¬ 
able’ potato to be fixed hereafter. The re¬ 
ports (to be satisfactorily substantiated) will 
give the full particulars as to the kind of 
soil, fertilizer, manure, variety of potato and 
method of culture, and are to be handed in 
before the first of next October.” 
It looks as if the farmers were getting a trifle 
discontented at being always kept on the back 
seats in politics. Some of them want to do 
something more than vote for others at the 
polls. They want to elect their fellow 
farmers to the Legislatures of their respective 
States. Nor does this content them: many of 
them want to be represented by men of their 
own calling in the House of Representatives at 
Washington. Nay, they have even the auda¬ 
city to want to send farmers to that nest of 
millionaire capitalists and corporate agents 
—the United States Senate. S. B. Alexander, 
their candidate for that body in North Caro¬ 
lina, is running Senator Ransom and his rail¬ 
road backers a hot race. In Delaware also the 
Senatorial fight is between the candidates 
of the farmers and the railroads. In Minne¬ 
sota, too, the granger element is taking a 
front place in the Senatorial fight against 
Sabin, and if their efforts were more concen¬ 
trated, good judges think they would come 
out ahead. Farmers are beginning to appre¬ 
ciate the truth of the old, old adage that G od 
helps those who help themselves. Of course, 
the political papers, as a rule, discourage this 
new departure; but there is a strong proba¬ 
bility that they will have to become 
accustomed to it. 
The New Agriculture.—T he Sun talks, 
rather sarcastically, of the “ New Agricul¬ 
ture.” It says that the system was discovered 
by that irrepressible, electrical veteran, 
Asahel Newton Cole, of Allegany County, 
N. Y., and the right place to make a con¬ 
spicuous and triumphant display of its mar¬ 
velous results is here at the doors of this 
metropolis, among the hills of Westchester. 
The land is there, its long slopes turning to 
the southern sun; the living springs of water 
are there; the climate is favorable, the situ¬ 
ation peerless, and all that is necessary s 
that some great and far-seeing man, with as 
much money as he has brains, should devote 
a little thereof to a work whose success will 
not merely make its capitalist glorious and 
famous, but also increase bis wealth beyond 
the wildest dreams of avarice. What wise 
millionaire, what rich and great philanthrop¬ 
ist, desirous of being the benefactor of the 
human race, of putting an end to hunger and 
poverty, will come forward and lay bold of 
this unexampled opportunity to gain for him¬ 
self imperishable renown, and to confer upon 
his grateful countrymen the benefits of un¬ 
iversal prosperity and boundless abundance? 
In Favor of Dehorning.— When the 
craze for dehorning cattle sprang up at the 
West some years ago, looking at it trom a 
distance of a thousand miles or more, it look¬ 
ed like a mighty cruel business to take a saw 
and cut off the horns of all the animals on 
the farm. During Mr. J. H. Hale’s recent 
visit to the West, as reported in the Conn. 
Courant, he noticed, in several counties of 
Illinois and Wisconsin, thousands of cattle 
that had been thus treated,and at a farmers’ in¬ 
stitute in Grant County, Wisconsin, he asked 
for a little information with the following 
results. Thirty-six of the farmers present 
had each dehorned from 9 to 600 head. Not 
a single arymal’s life had been lost; two cows 
were reported as having given less milk for a 
few days. Not a single one of these farmers 
yet had any reason to regret his work, and 
most of them were confident that their cattle 
were doing better in winter on less feed than 
ever before. Most of them have abandoned 
tying up cattle and now turn them all into the 
stables together, as there is no danger of in¬ 
jury from hooking. It was not thought best 
to dehorn young calves as they are likely to 
form a habit;of bunting,but by leaving the horn 
on till the animal is two years or more old, 
they learn lo use them; and when they are 
once removed they realize their weakness, 
and become very peaceful. After this testi¬ 
mony and thinking over the list of Connecti¬ 
cut farmers who have been seriously injured 
during the past ten years by the horns of 
various farm animals, Mr. Hale is convinced 
that dehorning is a modern idea that has 
come to stay and that we shall keep sawing 
off the horns till such time as nature shall 
breed them off. 
Polluted water as a Source of Typhoid 
Fever, etc. —At the meeting of the American 
Public Health Association the other day, Dr. 
Charles Smart,surgeon in the United States Ar¬ 
my, presented an important paper on the pol¬ 
lution ot water supplies. A few years ago it was 
popularly assumed that some system of arti¬ 
ficial filters, either those composed of masses 
of sand through which the water was com¬ 
pelled to pass on its way from the reservoir to 
the supply pipes, or domestic filters, would 
serve to remove the germs which produce 
typhoid fever and other kindred diseases. 
Dr. Smart holds with nearly all those who 
have studied the subject, that such filters, 
though they may afford water apparently 
of the purest kind, really do not serve to sep¬ 
arate the poisonous elements from it. He 
cites a number of important instances which 
have a bearing on this point. He notes the 
fact that in case of the poisonous water 
which bred the dreadful epidemic in Ply¬ 
mouth, Pa , where hundreds of the 8,000 peo¬ 
ple were affected by typhoid fever, and 130 
died from the disease, the water wus passed 
through three storage reservoirs on its way to 
the distribution pipes. In a similar epidemic 
at Lauzun, in Switzerland, the germs had 
passed through what seemed to be perfect fil¬ 
ters. His conclusion is that water which has cnce 
been contaminated can never be safe for use. 
Dr. Smart states that 30,000 people die of ty¬ 
phoid fever each year within the limits of the 
United States. If we allow that the average 
death rate is one in ten of those prostrated 
by the disease, we have an appalling amount 
of illness due to this malady. The probabilities 
are that the average death rate is one in 15, 
or perhaps even less, so that something near 
one-half a million people probably undergo 
each year a long period of illness and conse¬ 
quent enfeeblement of body owing to this dis¬ 
ease. 
POINTERS. 
The disposition to go to extremes has to be 
met on all sides, says Dr. Hoskins, in the 
Vermont Watchman. One would hardly 
have supposed, ten years ago, that any agri¬ 
cultural writer would be so soon obliged to 
make this cautionary remark. But after 
painstaking experiments, running through 
six months, with all kinds of rations, Pro¬ 
fessor Whitcher, of the New Hampshire Agri¬ 
cultural College, found that cows fed 50 pounds 
of silage and eight pounds of rye hay, costing 
11.02 cents per day, did as well as they did 
when fed 15 pounds of hay, 15 pounds of cut 
corn-stalks and eight pounds of meal, costing 
in all twenty-six cents per day. The silage 
was made from thinly-planted and eared corn. 
See that the seed corn is in a dry place 
free from frost. 
Profitable crops are always a subject of 
interest. And among other catch crops 
which give little trouble, but yield much pro¬ 
fit, the pickle cucumber is one of the best. A 
farmer in Connecticut,says the Times, planted 
an eighth of an acre last year and gathered 
43,000, which sold for 8107.50, leaving a profit 
of 869, or at the rate of 8552 per acre. 
These things are required for profit in this 
crop—I’ich,well-manured land, well cultivated; 
the right kind of seed, Green Prolific being 
the best, and near-by market, or else ability 
and opportunity to pack the pickles in brine 
in barrels for sale at a later season. 
To Produce milk Mr. Hoffman of the 
Elmira Club (N. Y.) said that no other root 
he had ever fed was at all comparable to the 
potato. He would have no hesitation in feed¬ 
ing potatoes, liberally, even if butter were 
the object. Another speaker who had fed 
many potatoes, and for considerable periods 
of time, declared them excellent for butter 
making. He would feed them with corn 
meal and wheat bran, for that had been his 
successful practice. 
Mr. J. J. Thomas says that the Summer 
Doyennd still remains the most popular 
early pear; that Giffard, following it, is 
larger in size and superior in quality. 
Frederick Clapp, one of the newer pears, 
promises high value. P. Barry places Sup- 
erfiu near the head of the list for excellence 
of quality. 
In Henry Stewart’s practice in the dairy, 
in which he has made a great many experi¬ 
ments and tests, he has found that when milk 
is set in shallow pans at a temperature of 60 
degrees to 62 degrees for 36 hours, and then 
skimmed every 12 hours, the cream may be 
kept to the end of 36 hours at the same tem¬ 
perature, to arrive at the best condition of 
ripeness. And cream taken from deep pails 
skimmed every 12 hours, after 24 hours set¬ 
ting at 45 degrees may be kept 48 hours at a 
temperature of 62 degrees to get the proper 
degree of ripeness. To reach this perfectly 
as he states in the Albany Cultivator, the 
cream must be gently stirred from the bot¬ 
tom to the top and thoroughly mixed when 
new cream is added, by which the fresh 
cream is soon brought to the same degree of 
acidity as the older cream, the acidity of 
which is partly neutralized by the sweet 
cream added. This thorough mixing is im¬ 
portant, as it equalizes the acidity or ripeness 
of the whole quantity. 
It has been maintained that there is a 
loss of butter in the sweet cream by this mix¬ 
ing, and that to get all the butter, or the 
largest quantity of it from cream, it must be 
kept or exposed to the air, or ripened, or ox¬ 
idized (all these mean the same thing), by it¬ 
self and enurned by itself. This, however, 
is a mistake, and Mr. Stewert avers most 
confidently that the mixture of the cream as 
above stated, will be equally effective for but¬ 
ter product, and the results of the churning 
will be fhe same as if every skimming be 
kept and churned by itself. 
The best “starter” for ripeuing cream is 
sour cream, or even sour milk, if itisnotdesir. 
able to afford the requisite time and exposure to 
the air iu the usual way iu which cream is 
kept. He has found that six hours’ time is 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
METHOD OF CUTTING. 
Large whole tubers. 10 ounces each. 
One-half tuber, cut lengthwise. 
Medium tuber, sprouts on, six ounces. 
Medium tuber, sprouts off. 
Medium tuber, ridged. 
Small tuber, quartered, two ounces. 
Halves of seed-ends, medium tuber. 
Quarters of seed-ends, medium tuber. 
Single eyes, cut shallow medium tuber. 
Single eves, halved, medium tuber. 
Single eyes ridged, medium tub»r. 
Seed* four weeks dried, medium tuber, quartered. 
Medium tubers, mulched wh<*n four Inches high... 
Medium tubers, mulched when four Inches high... 
U* 
°.S 
£ 3 
£ © 
fc cj 
o cj 
^ v 
G 
cS 
a? 
to 
% 
* 
150 
lbs. oz. 
32-n 
137 
SO— 6 
113 
80—.. 
155 
37- 1 
188 
24-12 
104 
31- 9 
134 
40-12 
1*4 
38-14 
117 
80—.. 
39 
9-10 
?s 
15-10 
38 
15— 5 
176 
46— 9 
182 
43-14 
