238 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
ANational Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. S4 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 0, 1889. 
Mr. T. C. Davenport, of Philadelphia, 
Pa., writes us that the State of Maine is 
the best late potato he knows of. 
r- 
let 8' 
What informed farmer will continue to 
8(50 pounds of water fall on each square 
foot of the barn yard when it usually con¬ 
tains three to five times as many tons as his 
hay mow, each ton of which, if it is properly 
made manure, is worth $3.00?’ - —Prof. I. P. 
Roberts, page 332. 
Mr. Alexander says that the Early 
White Ohio (not the Early Ohio), is be¬ 
yond doubt the finest table potato he 
ever tasted. We have heard the same 
from others. 
“ So terrible is this evil, when it comes, 
that I think, if necessary, it would be wise 
and very desirable to legislate against the 
importation of such ponies early in the 
season. I think our winters are too severe 
for the'ticks.'’’’— Prof. A. J. Cook, page 229. 
Armstrong wheat (Landreth) is not 
very popular on Long Island. One 
farmer, after having raised it three years, 
goes back to Clawson, though he prefers 
the Armstrong for its superior quality. 
“ Remember that appearance, quality and 
uniform size are all important passports to 
profit, and that in this business “ honesty is 
the best policy."— E. Williams, page 230. 
- ^ - 
As our readers well know the R. N.- 
Y. has from time to time urged the di¬ 
rectors of our experiment stations to 
take up poultry in connection with other 
live stock Such a course would do 
more to gain the interest and attention of 
the farming public than anything else 
ever can do. We are very glad to see 
that the Canadian experiment station 
managers realize the great importance of 
poultry experiments. In the last report 
issued by Prof. Saunders, we find a very 
intere8t ; ng account of the poultry de¬ 
partment. It appears that a practical 
poultry breeder is employed at the sta¬ 
tion to develop, crosses between the dif¬ 
ferent breeds, and to establish facts re¬ 
garding the most profitable breeds for 
egg production and for table use. We 
are pleased to see that the R. N.-Y.’s 
suggestion has led to something definite, 
though it is a trifle humiliating to think 
that our own stations cannot start in the 
matter. 
“ It is only the countries of small total 
area, and of small area under potatoes that 
at all nearly equal England in yield per 
acre ; and among them Belgium and Hol¬ 
land, the second and third on the entire list, 
more nearly approach it than any other, in 
density of population, and m the amount of 
live stock kept per acre, and consequently in 
the supply of manure ."— Dr. Gilbert, page 
235. 
Some of our wise Yankees find much to 
amuse them in the disputes English farm 
ers and butchers are having regarding the 
wisdom of weighing cattle rather than 
guessing at their weight. It is hard for 
some of us to understand why English 
farmers of good standing should still in¬ 
sist that the scales are not necessary in 
the cattle business. Yet, are all our own 
houses such that it is safe enough for us 
to throw stones? How about some of 
the systems employed in determining the 
value of the milk sent to butter factories? 
It is one of the most absurd notions of 
trade to assume that there should be any 
uniform price for milk. There is hardly 
any salable product that shows a wider 
range of value than milk. Take two 
samples of milk sent to a creamery. One 
may be worth, for butter, 50 per cent, 
more than the other, and this superior 
value should be recognized and paid for. 
Are the methods for determining these 
values fair and just? The Rural pro¬ 
poses to investigate these methods and to 
present one which promises to prove ex¬ 
act, easily understood and fair, 
A steamshtp recently arrived in this 
port with 700 tons of bones which were 
collected on the desert of Sahara. The 
misfortunes of man and beast on the 
great desert of North Africa have fre¬ 
quently been recited in song and story. 
They are now being turned to commercial 
account. For years these bones have 
been accumulating in the desert. Cara¬ 
van after caravan has succumbed to the 
terrible wind storms. The bones of men 
and beasts are found all along the desert 
tracks. These bones are easily collected, 
for as one wind covers them, another 
blows away their sandy shroud. Some 
years ago a German trader in Alexandria 
conceived the idea of collecting these 
bones for manufacturing and fertilizing 
purposes. The trade has increased to 
immense proportions, and the bones are 
now being sent to a dozen countries. 
Many are sold to the sugar refiners, but 
the greater proportion are made into fer¬ 
tilizers. Urgent indeed are the needs of 
agriculture in some localities when men 
will find it profitable to brave the dangers 
of the grpat desert in their search for 
phosphoric acid! 
-^- 
“ It is my firm belief that through intelli¬ 
gent and continued crossing and hybridiz¬ 
ing we must look for the most rajiid, success¬ 
ful and important improvements in the 
character and value of our American 
grapes Gfo. W. Campbell, page 230. 
The New York legislature of 1888 en¬ 
acted a law, entitled “ An Act to En¬ 
courage Arboriculture.” This provides 
that the Friday following the first day of 
May, shall be known hereafter as Arbor 
Day in this State. The act further 
states: 
“ It shall be the duty of the authorities of 
every public school in this State, to assemble 
the scholars in their charge on that day in the 
school building, op elsewhere, as they may 
deem proper, and to provide for and conduct, 
under the general supervision of the city 
superintendent or the school commissioner, or 
other chief officers having the general over¬ 
sight of the public schools in each city or dis¬ 
trict, such exercises as shall tend to encourage 
the planting, protection and preservation of 
trees and shrubs, and an acquaintance with 
the best methods to be adopted to accomplish 
such results. 
“The State Superintendent of Public In¬ 
struction shall have power to prescribe from 
time to time, in writing, a course of exercises 
and instruction in the subjects hereinbefore 
mentioned, which shall be adopted and ob¬ 
served by the public school authorities on 
Arbor Day, and upon receipt of copies of such 
course, sufficient in number to supply all the 
schools under their supervision, the school 
commissioner or city superintendent aforesaid 
shall promptly provide each of the schools 
under his or their charge with a copy, and 
cause it to be adopted and observed.” 
State Superintendent Draper has issued 
a circular which explains the law and 
outlines a partial programme. We hope 
that all school officials will secure a copy 
and act upon the suggestions contained 
in it. New York is slow at starting in 
this matter, but we hope for good results 
now that the start has been made. 
The publication of a story entitled “Our 
First Farmers' Institute." will soon begin. 
We know our friends will like it. It is sharp, 
bright and suggestive , and, we judge, true 
in all things. 
JAPAN CHESTNUTS. 
T WENTY chestnuts of the Japan va¬ 
riety known as Paragon, were sent 
to us by H. M. Engle, of Pennsylvania, 
last fall. They were placed in a box of 
sand moderately moist and the box was 
kept in the cellar. The nuts, which were 
found to be perfectly preserved, were 
planted last week. These nuts, so pre¬ 
served, sprout very readily and make a 
growth of about 18 inches the fiist sea¬ 
son. The R. N.-Y. for several years 
past has advised those of its readers who 
can afford to experiment to raise Japan 
chestnut seedlings, and that is still our 
advice. Possibly the Paragon is an out¬ 
come of that advice We have in this 
a nut nearly as good as the American 
chestnuts, and twice as large as the larg¬ 
est of them, while the beautiful trees 
bear even in the nursery rows. Some of 
our esteemed contemporaries have dis¬ 
covered that the Japan chestnut is of vile 
quality, and are, hence, advising their 
readers not to plant the trees. But the 
R. N.-Y. begs to offer the opinion that 
those who, acting upon its advice, shall 
be able to offer Paragon nuts, or other 
seedling Japans as good for sale, will find 
a ready and remunerative market for 
them. We do not know Mr. Engle and 
our praise of this variety, as has been our 
condemnation or praise of all ether fruits 
or plants sent to the Rural Grounds for 
trial, has been given regardless of the in¬ 
terests of those who have sent them. 
HOW IS IT? 
T EN years ago, the li. N.-Y. an¬ 
nounced, as the result of its own 
trials, that weevil-eaten peas were essen¬ 
tially worthless for seed. Seedsmen, the 
best of them; entomologists, the best of 
them, denied it. The contest was hot. 
To-day reputable seedsmen will not sell 
weevil-eaten seeds. How much was this 
bit of information worth to the country? 
How much has it been worth since? The 
Rurai/s discovery has never, that the 
writer can recall, been recognized by the 
agricultural pi ess. If an experiment 
station had discovered it, the press would 
have heralded it far and near—from Dan 
to Beersheba. We are not carping at 
this. It is mentiom d as an instance of 
the narrow-minded, mercenary spirit dis¬ 
played by the farm press in matters 
which it is their duly to make public re¬ 
gardless of their pecuniary interest for 
the time being. It is on a par with the 
fact that such farm journals as the Amer¬ 
ican Cultivator. New England Farmer, 
Massachusetts Ploughman, Country Gen¬ 
tleman, etc., refuse the yearly advertise¬ 
ment of the Rural New-Yorker, setting 
forth, in conservative terms, its claims to 
the support of American farmers. It’s 
on a par with their non-recognition of 
the R. N.-Y. as essentially the first agri¬ 
cultural experiment station in America, 
and of the effective contributions it has 
made, as such, towards the advancement 
of agricu tural interests. 
The R. N.-Y. has meanwhile been glad 
enough to record every valuable original 
investigation made by other journals and 
sorry enough that they have been in- 
finitisimally few; wh le it has in no in¬ 
stance refused the advertisement of a con¬ 
temporary. The R. N.-Y”. has never in a 
single instance, known to it, copied or 
rewiitten an article original with an¬ 
other journal, without giving full credit. 
In hundreds, if not thousands of 
instances, we have seen the arti¬ 
cles, or parts of them, the methods, the 
results of investigations made by the R. 
N.-Y"., at no little cost of time and labor, 
printed in other farm papers without a 
whisper of credit. It is a short-sighted, 
selfish policy, brother Editors, and, 
though it may save you a penny to-day 
it will lose you two pennies to morrow. 
As a sort of incidental proof of this, it 
may be said that, though few if any 
of the farm papers can justly claim 
an increase in circulation this year over 
last, the R. N.-Y.’s circulation is to-day 
larger than it was in either 1887 or 1888 
—and this has occurred, too, notwith¬ 
standing the fact that we have advertised 
comparatively little (as compared with 
previous years) in other journals, with 
a view to increasing its circulation. It 
has likewise occurred notwithstanding 
the fact that its price for single yearly 
subscriptions is the same to-day as it was 
10 years ago, while scores of our con¬ 
temporaries have reduced their price all 
the way from two dollars to a single dol¬ 
lar, while fifty and even twenty-five cent 
monthlies are thicker than new-fledged 
agricultural professors. 
A GIGANTIC SALT TRUST. 
S OME time ago a great salt Trust was 
formed in England which, at the out¬ 
set, disclaimed any idea of putting up 
prices. Its professed object was to put 
down the cost of production by the in¬ 
troduction of better methods and ap¬ 
pliances and a more economical manage¬ 
ment, the chief point in which was to be 
the dismissal of a large number of em¬ 
ployes who would be rendered superflu¬ 
ous on the concentration of many small 
salt making concerns in a single large 
one. The business prospered amazingly 
for the stock holders from the first. Ex¬ 
penses were greatly cut down by throw¬ 
ing hundreds of clerks, superintendents 
and workmen out of employment. Then, 
still further to increase the profits it was 
found really necessary to decrease pro¬ 
duction and increase prices. The public 
grumbled, but what could the public do 
about it? 
Having lowered the cost of salt as far 
as practicable and raised the price of the 
article as far as at present tolerable in 
England, the Trust wished to avail itself 
of the greatly reduced rates of transpor¬ 
tation it could command to the vast 
market afforded by our population of 
sixty millions. The import duty on salt, 
however, is 12 cents per 100 pounds 
in packages and eight cents per 100 
pounds in bulk, or an average of about 70 
per cent, on the cost of salt produoed in 
this country. Indeed of late years, salt 
has been made for as little as 12 
cents per 100 pounds in Michigan, and, 
of course, with cheaper labor, the cost of 
production is still lower across the water. 
If therefore, the English Trust could in¬ 
duce American producers to put up the 
price of the salt to the extent of the 
duty, importations of English salt would 
be enormously increased, while the 
American salt-makers would be amply 
compensated for the smaller amount of 
the product sold by the much greater 
price they obtained for it. Moreover, to 
gain their object the transatlantic capi¬ 
talists were willing to invest large sums 
in forming an American salt Trust which 
should monopolize the business on this 
side of the water as the English Trust 
has of late been doing on the other. 
For some weeks negotiations for the ac¬ 
complishment of this end have been in 
progress, and now it is broadly intimated 
that they have been successfully com- 
p'ettd, so that s^on a vast salt-producing 
Trust is pretty certain to take its place 
alongside of other unscrupulous monopo¬ 
lies of the same oppressive stripe on the 
already heavily loaded back of the Amer¬ 
ican citizen. This will enable English 
capitalists to limit production and raise 
prices in this country, thus throwing 
hundreds of our people out of employ¬ 
ment, while availing themselves of the 
greater profits to be reaped from the 
“ pauper labor of Europe.” 
Of course, some of the American salt 
men deny that the Trust is an English 
enterprise, and some even allege that 
there is no Trust, while others try to dis¬ 
guise it as a rather benevolent undertak¬ 
ing. Farmers will be greater sufferers 
than any other class from the operations 
of such a monopoly, for they have to use 
salt not only for their own consumption, 
like the rest of the community, but also 
for pickling meat and making butter for 
sale, as well as feeding stock and even 
stimulating or protecting their crops. 
Even strong protectionists intimate that 
such an attempt to defeat the tariff by 
combinations of producers who are bene¬ 
fited by it, should be defeated without 
compromise or meicy They say that the 
people have not upheld the principles of 
protection for the purpose of giving great 
fortunes to a few favored individuals at 
the expense of the rest of the community. 
What do YOU say ? 
“ Test every cow faithfully, study her as 
an individual; try if some special modifica¬ 
tion of feed, or feeding, may not develop 
merit in her; 'give her a fair show,'and 
then if there be no good found in her, let her 
go."— Bucephalus Brown, page 237. 
brevities. 
Again, Domestic Economy bas the floor. 
Mushrooms retail at 90 cents per pound. 
The Belgian breed is the latest canditate 
for draft horse honors at the West. 
The markets are flooded with odiohs. 
There never was such a supply before. 
Eggs are very cheap as compared with last 
year. A year ago, however, the blizzard had 
upset all the plans of the hens 
Be kind enough to remind your road-mas¬ 
ter of the fact that wild cherry trees form a 
breeding place for the tent caterpillar. 
The markets are full of turnips just now. 
There is but little demand for this vegetable. 
Boarding-houses and cheap restaurants pro¬ 
vide the market for most of those that are 
sold. 
This is from a Michigan subscriber:—“ I do 
not like the way you handle the woman 
question. You make the ladies hard to catch 
and of no use when caught by training them 
to be independent of the men.” 
THEmember of the R. N.-Y. family that 
shows the most appreciative taste for milk is 
a little Canadian mare. By the way, is there 
any breed of horses that can perform more 
work per pound of live weight than these 
tough little animals? 
MARKET-men are fond of saying that there 
is no fruit or vegetable that cannot be found 
any day in the year at the New York mar¬ 
kets. The desired article can be found if the 
purchaser has a purse long enough to stand 
the price. It is generally agreed that of all 
fruits the pear is the hardest to obtain out of 
season. • 
Quite a business in turkey feathers is done 
in this city. They are in good demand in the 
manufacture of feather dusters of which im¬ 
mense numbers are sold each year. There is 
also quite a trade yet in the old-fashioned quill 
pen. White feathers are worth considerably 
more than colored, and breeders of white fowls 
frequently r use this argument in speaking 
of their favorites. 
