496 
s 
JULY 27 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
AN Atlonal Journal for Country and Suburban Hois ts 
Conducted by 
SliBEBT 8. OiBMili 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Pars Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1889. 
Now, right bow 1 This is the time to 
doit! Read the Rural Grounds sermon 
under Domestic Economy, ye procras¬ 
tinators! 
Farmers in lonely districts at the 
South have long felt that the burial of 
the dead is made unnecessarily expensive 
by the extortionate charges of dealers in 
undertaker’s goods. Not long ago au 
Undertaker’s Trust was formed and the 
result has been to force prices for burial 
equipments to a higher rate than ever be¬ 
fore. In fact, the situation has become 
unbearable, and the Georgia Farmers’ Al¬ 
liance has come out in open warfare 
against the Trust. The South is overrun 
by agents for various tombstone com¬ 
panies who well understand the art of 
working upon the sorrows and sympathies 
of the afflicted. 
In England the open air silo has been 
quite successful. Some of our friends 
have urged the introduction of the silage 
stack into this country. Much of their 
advice was not based upon experience; 
they simply urged what they thought 
ought to be valuable. Experiments do 
not round out their claims. In the North¬ 
ern States the weather is such that silage 
is much better fed out and handled under 
cover. A good deal of the out-door 
stacks have spoiled and the work of haul¬ 
ing to the barn is too much. The Amer¬ 
ican silo should be in the barn. That 
point seems settled. The plan of curing 
corn fodder described in the R. N.-Y. by 
Mr. C. S. Rice is about as close as we are 
liable to get to an open-air silo. 
It is as impossible to raise a good colt from 
poor parents as it is to raise a good crop oj. 
grain from poor seed and a ivorn-out piece 
of land .— page 491 
In a late English work on the use of 
chemical manures, the following occurs: 
“Farmers often make the mistake of 
adding an excess of manures (plant food) 
to their land. What are the results to 
ourselves if we go to excess in eating and 
drinking? Why, disease. It is exactly 
the same with farm crops. Many crops 
are spoiled by over-manuring the land.” 
Not long ago the R. N.-Y. was in 
doubt as to the wisdom of making a late 
application of fertilizer to potatoes. A 
farmer who was appealed to for advice, 
replied: 
“ I do not think potatoes are enough 
like human beings to be made sick by 
over-eating. They can never take up 
more plant food than they can digest.” 
Now which is right, good reader? 
In December last, as noted in the R. 
N.-Y. at the time, the Department of Ag¬ 
riculture received from the Chief Secre¬ 
tary of Queensland, Australia, a request 
that the Department should nominate to 
the government of the colony, a suitable 
person to be appointed as instructor in 
agriculture. Last Thursday Secretary 
Rusk selected our contributor Professor 
Edward M. Shelton, of Manhattan, Kan¬ 
sas, for the position, and so notified the 
Australian government. Professor Shel¬ 
ton has been for many years Professor of 
Practical Agriculture in the Kansas Ag¬ 
ricultural College. He has also been 
connected with the Michigan Agricul¬ 
tural College, and has taught practical 
agriculture under the auspices of the 
Japanese government. Secretary Rusk 
says Professor Shelton is the best man 
available in the United States for the 
position, and is confident that he will 
creditably represent the country. In this 
opinion the R. N.-Y. fully coincides. 
The R. N.-Y. is glad that Secretary 
Rusk has established an Editorial Divis 
ion in the Department of Agriculture. 
As heretofore stated in these columns, the 
head of this Division will edit the various 
reports and bulletins that are issued by 
the Department, and issue an easffy-read 
synopsis that will take the place of the 
great volumes to which we have pre¬ 
viously been treated. The big volumes 
will appear by themselves; but we ven¬ 
ture to say that very few of them will 
be read. T he need of such work as that 
proposed by the new Division is pointed 
out on page 503 of this issue. “Colic in 
Horses” and “The English Sparrow” are 
very striking illustrations of the need of 
an editor. The R. N.-Y. will continue 
to review the bulletins and reports in its 
own way. One w T ord of caution. Dur¬ 
ing the next year farmers will be favored 
with a perfect deluge of information from 
the experiment stations. This new sys¬ 
tem of editorial work will provide abun¬ 
dance of “copy” for editors who do not 
now look inside the reports. The point 
to remember is that these reports are the 
results of experiments and must be tested 
at home before being largely adopted. 
For “ breaking ,” “ training ” ought to be 
substituted; but if one does not teach a colt 
how to work , lead and be dutiful while it. is 
a colt, it will certainly need "breaking ' lat¬ 
er on .—page 491. 
Farmers throughout the country will 
watch the proceedings of the constitu¬ 
tional conventions of the four new West¬ 
ern States with interest. In forming 
their constitutions these States will have 
the advantage of viewing the results and 
failures of measures tried in older States. 
On the general principle that it is easier 
to start right than it is to get into the 
right rut after running for awhile in the 
wrong one, we may reasonably expect 
that the delegates to the conventions in 
the Dakotas, Montana and Washington, 
will use the utmost care in preparing 
their State constitutions. We shall look 
with a good deal of interest to see what 
action is taken in the matter of taxing 
railroads, controlling trusts and corpora¬ 
tions and disposing of school lands. In 
the Dakotas particularly, where farming 
is the chief industry, the action taken in 
these matters may fitly represent the 
views Western farmers have arrived at. 
Judge Cooley, in addressing the North 
Dakota delegates, said that one great 
tendency in torming a constitution was 
to leave too little to the people. The 
constitution of an intelligent people 
should grow and develop, keeping pace 
with gieat changes in society and indus¬ 
try. Surely these Western delegates 
have a wonderful chance to produce 
model constitutions. 
SPECIAL NOTICE. 
T N reply to inquiries we may state that 
the inner portion of the flowers of 
the potato R. N.-Y. No. 2 is a light pur¬ 
ple. This purplish color covers irregu¬ 
larly about half the corolla. The outer 
portion is nearly white. The proportion 
of white and purple is shown in the illus¬ 
tration which was carefully drawn from 
nature. This variety never hears solid 
white flowers. The stems also are, here 
and there, tinted with purple. They are 
long-jointed and branch less freely than 
do most other varieties. 
THE DAIRY BUSINESS. 
T HERE is to be a boom in the dairy 
business. More butter and cheese 
will be made and more milk and cream 
will be offered for sale. This will mean 
over-production and lower prices unless 
new markets can be found. There is a 
market for millions of pounds of our but¬ 
ter and cheese in Europe—we mean for 
millions of pounds more than we now 
send there. This market never can be 
secured until every pound of butter and 
cheese that leaves this country is guaran¬ 
teed. Only first-class goods are wanted. 
This relief for our dairy markets will 
never be found until the quality of Amer¬ 
ican butter equals that of Danish or 
French butter, and American dealers in¬ 
augurate such a system of inspection that 
goods below the standard cannot be 
shipped. The R. N.-Y. believes that this 
system of inspection will, sooner or later, 
be perfected, and we believe that this 
will mean a good increase in our dairy ex¬ 
ports, but butter-makers must back up 
the butter dealers. 
Does the R. N.-Y. advise the farmers 
who are driven away from beef making 
by the dressed beef trade to take up 
dairying? No direct answer can be given 
to this question. Too much depends 
upon the man. Some men are natural 
dairymen; others never can make good 
butter. The writer of this enjoys taking 
care of a cow, while the hired man loves 
a horse, but can hardly be induced to 
milk. We regard any general advice to 
farmers in this line therefoie as absurd. 
One thing is sure—an over-production of 
inferior grades of butter wall improve the 
chances for disposing of first-class butter. 
This is a principle of business that has 
been proved a dozen times. Butter mak¬ 
ing is a science. In all the history of the 
■world there never was a time when facili¬ 
ties for the study of this science were 
more easily available. Feed, cow and 
tools; these are the dairy factors that all 
must recognize. The three must be per¬ 
fect—that is best adapted to the local 
conditions. Recognizing the great im¬ 
port ance of the dairy industry and the 
peculiar inteiest just now attached to it, 
the R. N.-Y. will endeavor to give special 
attention to this department hereafter. 
/ maintain that a man who has no love for 
a horse could never raise a good colt. His 
idea of training a colt is, first of all , to let 
it knoiv what a whip is jor, and its second 
lesson is a continuation of the first, and the 
third and fourth are repetitions of the 
others until the colt knows nothing except 
the whip .—page 491. 
THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL EX¬ 
POSITION OF 1892. 
I T appears to be the universal opinion 
that the four hundreth anniversary 
of the discovery of America by Christo¬ 
pher Columbus, which will occur in Oc¬ 
tober, 1892, should be celebrated by hold¬ 
ing, on this hemisphere, a grand interna¬ 
tional exposition in which the world may 
be made lamiliar with American resources, 
American products, American manufac¬ 
tures, American enterprise and American 
characteristics and achievements All 
agree that the exposition should be held 
in this country, the most powerful, most 
populous, most enterprising, most ad¬ 
vanced in all the arts and sciences of 
all the countries in the New World. In 
what city in this country should it be 
held? The nearly universal opinion is 
that New York is the most appropriate 
place. Washington is the chief rival 
claimant for the honor, as the capital of 
the United States. But Columbus did 
not discover the United States—he dis¬ 
covered America, and New York is the 
acknowledged commercial, artistic, in 
dustrial, scientific, and literary capital not 
only of this country, but of the whole con¬ 
tinent from'Point Barrow to Cape Horn. 
Washington has neither accommodations 
for visitors nor means of amusing them 
duiing their stay, nor even facilities for 
getting them there. It is on one of the 
by-ways of the nation so far as the trans¬ 
portation of domestic exhibits and visit¬ 
ors is concerned, and inconveniently side¬ 
tracked on it in regard to those from 
abroad. It is a huge boarding-house for 
clerks and transients. It iB the head- 
center of the politicians of the country, 
and the undertaking there would degen¬ 
erate into a vast political job. It has few 
public-spirited citizens rich enough to 
aid the enterprise materially by contrib¬ 
uting towards its cost. It lacks execu¬ 
tive ability to organize, complete and 
manage so great an undertaking in a 
manner worthy of the nation, and it lacks 
energy, tact and broad minded liberality 
to make it successful. 
On the other hand, New York has 
already 215 well-known hotels with 
ample accommodations for 75,000 people, 
and minor hotels and boarding-houses 
that will easily accommodate 100,000 
additional; while there is room for 200, 
000 more in private houses and flats 
which would be at the disposal of the 
public during such an occasion. Then 
there are hundreds of hotels and board 
ing houses in Brooklyn, with its 1,250,000 
population, on one side; and in Jersey 
City, with its 200,000, on the other, to 
say nothing of the accommodations in 
Staten Island, and numerous towns in 
Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, 
within easy reach of the city, by rail and 
water. Then there is a multitude of 
restaurants suitable to all tastes and 
pockets scattered everywhere throughout 
the city. There would be no difficulty 
whatever in comfortably housing and 
feeding from 400,000 to 500,000 strangers 
in New York and its environs, and this 
can be said of no other city in the 
country. 
What other city has so many theatres, 
art galleries, libraries, clubs, churches 
and other sources of amusement and 
mental as well as moral improvement for 
visitors, who must, perforce, pass most 
of their time outside the Exposition 
walls? Then, think of the vast re¬ 
sources in this way of the suburbs 
across the East and North Rivers! 
No other city in the nation or in the 
world has such ample transportation 
facilities fer exhibits and visitors. All the 
great railroad lines of the country converge 
to this outlet. There are eight main lines, 
and 1,750 trains now arrive and depart 
every day, and the number could be 
greatly increased if the traffic demanded 
it. Then there is a multitude of local 
steamship lines along the Sound and up 
the North River, and a still greater num¬ 
ber to seaboard cities from Portland, 
Maine, to Galveston, Texas. These lines 
could lun excursions at low rates and 
furnish lood and beds to a million in the 
course of the season. The more foreigners 
who can be induced to make displavs at 
the Exposition and to visit it, tne greater 
will be its success, and no other city can 
approach New York in its transportation 
facilities with other nations. Official 
statistics show that over seven eightns of 
the people who come to this country from 
all directions land here. There are no 
fewer than 54 regular lines of steamers 
that leave this port for the chief seaboard 
cities of the world, affording transporta¬ 
tion facilities for passengers and freight 
to all parts of the world, even to distant 
China, Japan, and Australia, while hun¬ 
dreds of “tramp” steamers supplement 
these to places wffiose traffic is less. 
New York can justly boast of the pub¬ 
lic spirit, wealth and enterprise of her 
citizens, and should the great Internation¬ 
al Exposition be held here, all the neces¬ 
sary capital can be readily subscribed. 
Then again, New Yorkers are accus¬ 
tomed to handle large affairs, which their 
great executive abilities render success¬ 
ful. Without derogating a particle from 
the advantages and virtues of the various 
other claimants for the Exposition, it is 
the simple truth that the transcendant 
housing, feeding, amusing, instructing 
and transportation facilities of New York, 
as well as the wealth, public spirit, enter¬ 
prise and executive ability of her citizens, 
fit her pre-eminently to make the 
Exposition a source of instruction and 
profit to the industries of the country, an 
honor to the Nation and a beneficial ob¬ 
ject-lesson to the world. 
“To skim off the virgin fertility from large 
tracts, as rapidly and with as little solid ad¬ 
vantage as possible, and to pass on and on, 
repeating the same process in illiterate and 
ragged independence, has been a distin¬ 
guishing mark of American farming, East 
and West, North and South."— Dr. Hoskins, 
page 497. 
BREVITIES. 
CORN will be good property. 
Prices for No. 1 hay promise to be highly 
satisfactory. The crop has been large but a 
good deal ot it has been injured by the contin¬ 
ual wet weather. 
Southern stockmen are a little excited 
just now over the probable feeding values of 
cotton-seed hulls. The R. N.-Y. is cf the 
opinion that it will te found that the greatest 
values of these hulls lies in the ashes used as 
a fertilizer. 
The dairy worker who colors butter in the 
churn works on the principle employed by the 
one who depends upon green grats for a color. 
They both aim to get vegetable coloring mat¬ 
ter into the product. In one case the cow 
does the work, and in the other the dairy 
worker does it. 
In all the poultry shows held in England, 
the Dorkings still lead while Langshans seem 
to be second. The American breeds do not 
seem to meet with much favor yet. the R. 
N.-Y. likes the Dorking fowl and is breeding 
chickens from a Silver-Gray Dorking rooster 
for next season’s hens. 
It is reported that preparations are bo 
ing made by large cattlemen to push heavy 
shipments of live cattle to Europe next month. 
There is reported scarcity of good cattle in 
Europe just now. While these shipments will 
relieve American markets somewhat, it is not 
probable that prices will be seriously affected. 
