4880 
THE DURAL NEW-YORKER. 423 
many cattle are being fed for market here as 
usual. Fruit buds are abundant, but it is too 
early to make a promise of what the harvest 
will be. The peach crop for several years 
past has been killed in March. Maybe it will 
again. If the Rural No. 2 potato succeeds 
as well as the Blush has done, the paper will 
have no reason to regret having introduced it. 
With eight consecutive volumes of the paper 
by me, I can say, “ Success to the Rural and 
its editors!” t. h. w. 
Louisiana. 
Baker P. 0., Jan. 21.—We have had a 
pleasant winter so far. The ground was 
slightly frozen this morniDg. Planters who 
did not utterly fail in making a potato crop 
last year, are getting ready to plant for this 
season. There will not be one-half the area 
planted in potatoes, that there was last year. 
Money matters are tight with planters ard 
country merchants. r. g. b. 
Michigan. 
Albion, Calhoun Co , February 6.— Our 
winter has been very mild; not till February 
5, had the thermometer reached zero. No 
sleighing yet. Ice is being harvested now; it 
is about six inches thick. Crops were very 
good here except corn, and the catch of clover, 
like corn, was a partial failure. Winter 
wheat is somewhat covered with ice. Stock 
is doing nicely. Cows fetch $30 to $f>0; horses 
$75 to $225 per head. Wheat, 94 cents to 90 
cents per bushel; oats 27 cents; butter 18 to 20 
cents; eggs 14 cents per dozen. s. a. 
Oregon. 
Pendelton, Umatilla Co., January 23.— 
Our winter has been fine. The ther¬ 
mometer has not got down to zero yet; 
the nearest it got to that point was 
eigtit degrees above, and now the weather 
looks like spring. Wheat is worth 70 cents a 
bushel. It is our principal crop. We sow it 
either in fall or spring, and we have never 
had a failure, although it froze out last winter 
for the first time; but our average yield was 
2<> bushels to the acre. G. m. h. 
Joseph, Wallowa Co.,'January 27.—We 
had a very dry summer. Crops as a general 
thing were poor, although good farmers had 
very good crops. Some of them report as good 
crops as usual. All kiuds^of grain are scarce 
and high in this country: Wheat 90 cents; 
oats, 1% cent per pound; barley cent per 
pound; potatoes, 1 and 1 % cent per pound; 
hogs, 4 cents on foot ; dressed 7 and 8 cents 
per pound. Hay from $0 to $12 per ton ac¬ 
cording to kind and location. Grain bay is 
iu greater demand .for milch cows than 
Timothy. People out here prefer grain hay 
for cows to anything else. I think if 
Eastern farmers would try this kind 
of hay they would never use Timothy for 
milch cows. Stock went into winter in poor 
shape. There has been no snow on the winter 
range so far, and if the winter holds out as 
mild as it has been, there will not be a very 
heavy loss among stock. There was a heavier 
loss among sheep iu the fall than was ever 
kuown. We had somo very bad squally 
weather in the fall and it knocked out the 
weak lambs and old sheep. We have had a 
very mild winter—about four inches of snow 
and two degrees below zero once. A great 
many farmers are taking advantage of the 
good sleddiug and are hauling up their year’s 
supply of wood O.hers who belong to 
“ farming-don’t-pay ” kind are busy running 
to town, and put in their time sitting around 
the saloons “cussing” the country and try¬ 
ing to borrow money to pay their store bills. 
There is a grand opportunity for some thrifty 
farmers to get cheap homes out here, as a 
great many want to emigrate and will sell for 
what they can get over and above their mort¬ 
gages. They belong to the “ farmmg-don’t- 
pay” class. R. a. s. 
Wisconsin. 
Delavan, Walworth Co., February 8 — 
So far this has been the finest winter we have 
had in a great many years. The eldest in¬ 
habitants do not remember a nicer one. At 
aoy time so far we have not bad snow enough 
for sleighing, and up to the present time the 
thermometer has been below zero only twice. 
Stock of all kinds are doing well; but the 
prices are so low that it does not pay to raise 
them. Fodder of all kinds is plentiful and 
cheap. Crops were good. Wheat per acre 20 
to 30 bushels; oats, 27 to 80; barley, 20 to 50. 
Corn was good, though a considerable amount 
of it was soft. Hay was a big crop. Timothy 
and clover are the only kinds raised here. 
R. R. s. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name 
and address of the writer to Insure attention. Before 
aslclrg a question, please see If It Is not answered In 
our advertising columns. Ash only a few questions at 
oue time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper. 
“LOCOED” HORSES. 
6’. IF. Coal Creek , Colorado .—I have lost 
three horses—oue, four, and five years old re¬ 
spectively—by some ailment the nature of 
which is a puzzle to me. 
I put them in a stable about Christmas, when 
the first snow came. I thought to fit the four 
and five-year-olds for sale by breaking them 
and getting them in flesh. They ate well for 
a short time and then got delicate about eat- 
iDg. I changed the feed from corn and 
fodder to oats, hay, bran, and chop corn, or 
rather corn meal. They did not improve any. 
At times they acted like old horses, seeming 
to be full of life. I turned them out on fine 
days. Finally I gave them condition pow¬ 
ders. They ate more; but there was no 
change in their appearance. As soon as the 
grass started I turned them out, and when 
they came up I fed them grain; but often they 
refused a feed. The grass was good and the 
five-year-old came out slick aud lively; but 
the other two never shed all their coat; some 
of the old hair hung on in late May and early 
June. The four-year-old would start run¬ 
ning; then he would eat grass for a few 
minutes; then lie down as if resting; get up 
aud run a few rods. The second day he 
walked or ran all the afternoon. He would 
look back to his side now and then, and start 
off again, running against fences, trees or 
rocks, or whatever stood iu his way, I did 
not give him anything, as he was dead when I 
got the medicine oidered by the doctor. The 
others acted in the same or nearly the same 
way; but they lived one day longer. The 
five-year-old frothed at the mouth, and at 
first held his head as high as possible, going 
round and round. He was so crazy that I 
cast him to force the oil down his throat. 
He lay as if dead for 10 or 15 minutes, then 
got up and started like the first, the oil com¬ 
ing up, and he kept going until he fell down 
to die. I gave the yearling nearly three pints 
of linseed oil and it had not operated in eight 
hours. I gave him a pound of Epsom salts, 
and in two hours it operated. Then I gave 
him an ounce of sweet niter. He began to feed, 
but in the morning he too was on the run, and 
died that evening. I opened the two oldest. 
The stomach of the first was full. At the out¬ 
let bots had formed a ring all around as close 
as they could get together for nearly three 
inches so that nothing could pass. The entire 
stomach was inflamed; the lower part was 
nearly ready to slough off, and from that to 
thedarge colon the inflammation grew less un¬ 
til at the point of connection there was no 
inflammation and none after that. The 
bloodVas^asJblack as tar, and the liver also, 
with a few white lumps that appeared granu¬ 
lar. There was but little in the bowels and 
what there’was looked natural. There was 
but little in the stomach of the second and 
only[four.or five bots at the outlet: and the 
inflammation covered only half the stomach: 
but on the bowels it was as bad as it was in 
case of the first, ODly it stopped before it 
reached the large colon. On cutting the 
arteries on the back, the blood was found to 
contain balls that looked like grains of soaked 
sago. Some were white, others of a yellow 
tinge and some were transparent. The liver 
only looked black; there were no lumps in it. 
Some of my neighbors say the cause of the 
horses’ death was bots. What does the 
Rural say? 
Ans.—T he symptons given are very much 
like those said to result from eating some one 
of the “loco” plants or “crazy-weeds”— 
Astragalus mollissimus, Oxytropis Lamberti, 
and perhaps others belonging to the natural 
erder Leguminosse or pea family—commonly 
found In Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and 
other portions of the West and Southwest. 
Of the nature of this disease very little is 
known, and as yet we know of no satisfact¬ 
ory course of treatment that can be recom¬ 
mended. If possible, pasture only in fields 
that are free from these “ crazy-weeds ” or 
“ lcco ’ plants. If you are not familiar with 
the Perry Russet a first-class apple for this lo¬ 
cality? 
Ans.— 1. It is quite common for farmers 
who use lime, to buy the air-slaked lime that 
remains as refuse at the kilns, at a reduced 
price, usually seven cents a bushel, which is 
equal to about 10 cents for unslaked. If it 
has not been exposed too long—more than a 
month or two—it is not injured for use on the 
land and is in a convenient shape for spread¬ 
ing at once, and the labor of one handling is 
saved. In buying slaked lime 3 ou pay for 
about one-third the weight of it in water, as a 
bushel or 80 pounds of fresh lime will absorb 
27 pounds of water in dry-air-slaking; but as 
the water has to be carried to the field in the 
spreading when the fresh lime is bought, noth¬ 
ing is really lost more than hauling the extra 
weight from the kilns in getting the air-slak¬ 
ed lime. As lime increases in bulk three times 
in the change to a hydrate by the absorption 
of water during the process of air- 
slaking, it is necessary, to prevent loss, 
to buy it by weight and not by 
measure. Many farmers pay very dearly 
for their lime bv not knowing this fact. 
2. Fattening sheep in the winter is by no 
means a business that can b9 reduced to rule. 
The best feeders sometimes fail to get paid for 
the food consumed, and sometimes incur con¬ 
siderable loss. For the feed of 80 sheep 
weighing 100 pounds each, live weight, there 
would be required three pounds of good hay 
and one pound of the mixed grain for each 
head, making, in all, 240 pounds of hay and 
80 pounds of grain. In addition, some straw— 
oat-straw preferably—should be given at 
night for a litter, of which some would be 
eaten. In four months the feed used would 
be fifteen tons of hay and 9,600 pounds of the 
mixed grain. This food might bring an in¬ 
crease of 10 pounds for each sheep in live 
weight, or 800 pounds in all for each month. 
But the feeding season is too long for profit. 
A period of three months is quite long enough 
and perhaps too long for the most profit. If 
the gain in weight pays for the food and the 
outlay for labor (which should not be much 
for feeding SO sheep,) the manure would afford 
a satisfactory profit. If the sheep are thrifty 
and good feeders and quiet in disposition— 
and much depends upon this—there may be a 
very good profit on the feeding, but as a rule, 
the profit of feeding thin sheep in the winter 
is small and uncertain, the best time being in 
the fall, when the flock comes off good pas¬ 
ture and is finished on hay and grain, and 
sold in January or February. 3. Unques¬ 
tionably Doucain is not meant, but Hawley, 
NEW JAPANESE SQUASH. 
the plants, it would be best to exclude all I 
plants belonging to the pea family. Thorough \ 
cultivation may be necessarj r to eradicate 
these dangerous plants from the pastures. 
UNSLAKED AND SLAKED LIME; FATTENING 
SHEEP IN WINTER; HAWLEY AND PERRY 
RUSSET APPLES. 
.4 Beginner, Tioga Co., Pa. —1. If I can 
buy slaked lime in barrels F. O. B., at 10 cents 
per bushel, how much should I pay for un¬ 
slaked lime? I don’t want to pay too much 
for water itself or for transporting it. 2. I 
want to fatten SO sheep which cost about three 
cents per pound. I shall feed them four 
months during which I shall need how many 
tons of clover hay? How much oats, corn, 
peas and wheat bran should be fed to each? 
What should be the average gain in weight? 
Setting the manure aside for profit, will there 
be any more profit in the business? 3. A friend 
advises me to top-graft a lot of Red Astrachan 
trees with Doucain (pronounced here as Douse) 
as being a better apple in all respects. Is 
Section ) 
which is Known as “Dowse,” or “Dows,” in 
Pennsylvania Tbe Hawley, (which orig 
mated in Columbia Co., N. Y.,) is a fine, 
large, handsome fall apple, but very perish¬ 
able. However, it may answer well for a 
near market. * 1 ‘Doucain” (properly Doucin.) 
is worthless as a fruit, it being a wild species, 
used only as a stock for dwarfing purposes. 
Perry Russet would be only a fall or early 
winter variety in Pennsjdvania. Itisot fairly 
good quality and is of medium size. In some 
localities it is complained of as dropping pre¬ 
maturely. If a keeping apple is wanted, the 
Golden Russet of Western New York is to 
be preferred. 
TO PREVENT MANURE FROM FIRK-FANGING: 
FIGHTING THE CABBAGE MAGGOT. 
F. M., South Bend, Indiana .—1 For my 
market garden I have to depend entirely on 
the horse manure I get from the city. I can¬ 
not keep it under cover and it always fire- 
fangs badly. What can be done to prevent 
it from burning? Would a heavy dressing of 
' NEW JAPANESE SQUASH. Fig. 39. 
