487 
THE BUBAL NEW-YORKER. 
Ewral {Topics. 
AGRICULTURE; AN ART, A BUSINESS, 
A SCIENCE, ETC. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
II. 
AS A BUSINESS. 
“Business is business,” but American 
farmers generally have not so recognized their 
vocation. The old hundred-bale cotton 
planters, the sugar planters, the great tobac¬ 
co p'anters, the hemp planters, the hop plant¬ 
ers and the sheep and cattle ranchers have 
generally looked upon their specialties in a 
business aspect; but just so far as they did 
so they have renounced the name of farmer^ 
have tried to claim for their vocations dis¬ 
tinctive titles, and have assumed a more im¬ 
portant social position, analogous to that of 
the professional, commercial and manufactur¬ 
ing classes. So long as the possession of sys¬ 
tematized knowledge and its useful applica¬ 
tion are so universally recognized as advanc¬ 
ing the title of the possessor to social distinc¬ 
tion, the drawing of such lines will have to 
be recognized, even in th6 most democratic 
society. Our di-tinguished men in America 
are distinguished not so much by any person¬ 
al assumption, as by the spontaneous recog¬ 
nition of their importance as citizens by the 
whole community. We have, in fact, no other 
basis upon which public consideration of the 
individual can steadily rest. 
Aside from the class of exceptions here in¬ 
dicated, there is no country on earth wheie 
the ownership of laud confers so little per¬ 
sonal importance upon the individual as in 
America. Until lately, land has been the one 
thing of which we have hai too much; and 
the term “ land-poor ” has even become an 
epithet of contempt. To skim off the virgin 
fertility from large tracts, as rapidly and 
with as little solid advantage as possible, and 
to pass on and on repeating the same process 
in illiterate and ragged independence, has 
been a distinguishing mark of American 
farming, East and West, North and South. 
Here and there real homesteads have oeen 
established by men of a different type; but 
they have been with difficulty maintained. 
The trumpeted attractions of this, that and 
the other new locality, have drawn away the 
young; and the attempts to fix families, and 
build up true homes, have been almost uni¬ 
versally a dreary failure. 
But the era of wide expansion is drawing to 
a close. Arable North America has been 
thoroughly explored, and the “moving on” 
tendency is evidently abating. No one part 
of the country is found to possess any marked 
superiority over another. The blessings of 
Providence have been very evenly distribut¬ 
ed, and on the whole one place is about as 
good as another. If there be any actual sup¬ 
eriority, all things considered, it would ap¬ 
pear to reside in those parts which have fur¬ 
nished the greatest number of emigrants; 
for toward those old States there is already a 
reflux, and to them are constantly being 
made the appeals for financial aid which they 
certainly could not grant, were they so infer¬ 
ior in natural resources to the newer sections 
as they have been represented. They had 
themselves in the early days no “ old States ” 
to appeal to for aid. Their capital has all 
been developed out of their natural resources 
by the iudustry, skill and prudence of their 
people; and to-day the “great and rich” West 
is looking continuously, eagerly and success¬ 
fully to the “ worn-out East” for the promo¬ 
tion of that very progress it so loudly vaunts, 
Nothing is truer thau that the East is the 
“ rich daddy ” whose dollars enable the West 
to “ spread herself.” 
It is right in the East, too, that business 
principles in their application to farming are 
being most rapidly developed. Many men 
who in their youth abandoned the farm tor 
trade have, in middle life, returned to the 
farm, and they have brought back to the 
work then the methods of trade, which have 
proved thoroughly helpful upon the land. All 
through New England (and it is the same 
elsewhere) are to be found ex-merchants and 
manufacturers engaged and deeply interest¬ 
ed in agriculture. Such men are not content 
with the old ways. They see at once how 
slipshod and wasteful those ways were, and 
they set themselves to improving them. In 
some respects farmers of this class are apt to 
be rather fanciful, and not quite mindful of 
the peculiar conditions which surround all 
agricultural work. But they have generally 
^earned how to learn; aud they take the luck 
of seasons, aud the teaehiug of mistakes, 
patiently. They come up smiling at all our 
agricultural meetings, and while they present 
the statistics of their farming in clear and 
convincing figures, they share with the rest 
of us the knowledge extracted from every 
failure, as well as from the more and more 
frequent successes. 
One asks “what are these business princip¬ 
les”? Briefly, they consist in the substitution of 
exact knowledge for guessing; of the applica¬ 
tion of sound principles for loose inaccuracy, 
and the use of weights and measures, records 
and figures, as means of getting at the best 
way of doing all sorts of work, and the final 
exclusion of all ways that cannot be justified 
in the same manner as commercial operations 
are justified. Every young farmer would be 
the better for a business education, if it did 
no more than enforce upon him the importance 
of system, accuracy, promptness and untiring 
perseverance. “Well enough,” and “about 
right,” are terms that must be dropped out 
of the vocabulary of the farm. 
farm Copks. 
SOME COGITATIONS. 
FRED GRUNDY. 
Adas for the Contest Plot!—I save just 
been looking at a prize patch of potatoes 
wherewith a certain party proposed to cap 
ture a thrashing machine, back-action churn, 
or some similar implement. As I gazed I 
smiled. I smiled as I thought of the energy 
and assurance “she” displayed when those po¬ 
tatoes were planted. How a night-mare of 
drought sat upon that patch and the tubers 
remained in status quo for five long weeks, 
while the prospective thrashing machine went 
glimmering! How they finally came up only 
to meet the omnivorous cut-worm and be 
smitten in their youth, while the prize back- 
action churn disappeared in the haze. How 
the cut-worm grew corpulent aDd gouty, and 
finally withdrew in favor of his co-laborer, 
the frisky gentleman in the striped jacket, 
who increased and multiplied and fared sump¬ 
tuously every day. How the rains fell and the 
floods came until the patch resembled a sub¬ 
merged forest, which grew paler and paler as 
the days went by like a Mississippi bottomite 
afflicted with the shakes. How the back-ac¬ 
tion churn simmered to an aquapult, then to 
a book, and finally to a few garden seeds, 
which are also fading and floating away into 
the “nevermore!” Thus do bright anticipa¬ 
tions attenuate and disappear. Thus does the 
energetic husbandman—or woman, as the 
case may be—spit on his hands and roll up 
his sleeves when he hears the song of the 
blue bird in the spring time, only to roll them 
down again when the melancholy days come, 
and vow a great vow that he’ll manage things 
differently next year. 
perate case, and I have decided to give the 
worms a rasp, let the consequences be what 
they may.” It was plain that the worms 
would get most of the corn if let alone, while 
if he riffled them up with the harrow a few 
times there was a possibility that he might 
save a portion of it. As he harrowed, a flock 
of blackbirds followed close after and gobbled 
up every worm that was uncovered, and there 
were hundreds. The ground was perfectly 
clear of trash, so but little corn was torn out, 
while he kept close watch and uncovered 
all that the harrow covered. As a result he 
now has a very fair stand of corn—enough to 
make at least 40 bushels per acre. Sometimes 
it is advisable to harrow corn, and sometimes 
it isn’t. It all depends upon the condition of 
the ground. 
Strawberries and Raspberries.— This 
is the 17th of June, and just winds up a 
month of strawberries. My quota has been 
limited to a heaping big saucerful three 
times a day, with sundry and numerous “spec¬ 
imens” whenever I passed the patch. We 
began with the Crescent and by the end of an¬ 
other week will finish with the Jessie. Cres¬ 
cent and Capt. Jack gave us the most berries, 
Bubach the largest, and Jessie the fairest to 
look upon. During the very rainy weather 
the Bubach tasted much like a washed-out 
turnip The Crescents never failed to be suf¬ 
ficiently acid for all practical purposes. They 
never needed lemons to give them snap. The 
Jessie is a pretty berry, but I couldn’t find 
any plant with several quarts on it, a la Col. 
Green. 
As the strawberries depart the raspberries 
come in. The Tyler bushes are now flecked 
with big, shiny black beads. The Turner is 
beginning to blush, while the Cuthbert is still 
blooming. Five or six weeks of raspberries 
will bring us to blackberries, and the Kitta- 
tinny bushes are full. Snyder ditto. Then 
come grapes, peaches, apples, etc., etc. Who 
wouldn’t own a modiciun of soil and grow an 
unceasing stream of fruits, ac the fountain¬ 
head of which he can feast unvexed? Tra la! ! 
Christian County, Ill. 
TWO NEGLECTED SHADE TREES. 
It need not be understood that because I 
say two, I do not know that there are many 
of our noble native forest trees the merits of 
which are too little known ; but my attention 
has recently been particularly called to two 
of them. 
The Cutaway Harrow Ahead. —I have 
seen two farming operations this season, 
which were new to me. A neighboring 
farmer plowed 35 acres of wheat stubble last 
August, intending to put it in wheat again in 
September. He changed his mind, however, 
and decided to keep it for corn this spring. 
He began work on his corn land first, and 
when he reached this piece the season was 
getting well aloDg. As there was no trash to 
speak of on the ground he supposed he could 
prepare it for planting by going over it with 
a disk and common harrow, but when he 
came to try it he soon learned otherwise. The 
winter rains had run the soil solidly together, 
and it was now baked so hard that the disk 
made scarcely any impression upon it. After 
fooling away a couple of hours, he came to 
the conclusion that it would have to be plow¬ 
ed, aud he set his man at it. A kind neighbor 
who owns a Cutaway harrow offered to lend 
it to him, telling him that it would “chaw 
that land up like amice.” He accepted the 
offer and tried it, and, sure enough, it did 
“chaw it up” in style. By going twice over 
he made a perfect seed-bed without using a 
harrow. The corn came up evenly and a 
prettier stand it would be hard to find any¬ 
where. I had seen the Cutaway harrow on 
exhibition, but had never before seen one ac¬ 
tually at work. It is a valuable implement, 
and for such work as this, is much superior 
to the disk, because it cuts in deeper and digs 
up aud loosens the soil better. 
The Harrow against the Cut-worms in 
Corn. —The other operation was fighting cut¬ 
worms with the harrow. In the early part of 
May, when the weather was cold and the 
ground almost as dry as dust, the cut-worm 
was abroad and hungry. Just across the road 
a noighbor has 80 acres of corn, and it did 
seem as though the pests would clean it up for 
him. He said to me: “I’m not au advocate 
of harrowing young corn, but this is a des- 
see, though it is’not abundant even there. It 
seldom grows more than 40 feet high. The 
leaves are pinnated in form, and expand late 
in the spring. The flowers in this vicinity are 
seenfabout the first of June in racemes or clus¬ 
ters, pea-shaped and pure white, reminding 
one of those of the Honey Locusts, with a 
slight and agreeable perfume. The barb is 
smooth, of a greenish-gray color, and the 
leaves in autumn take on a bright yellow 
tint. Its heart-wood is yellow and from it a 
coloring matter is often extracted; hence its 
common name. This tree is also quite diffi¬ 
cult to transplant, as it has many small 
fibrous roots that are so tough that it is almost 
impossible to cut them with a spade; but it 
grows readily from the seeds which ripen in 
August. It is quite a rapid grower and 
blooms when 10 or 12 feet high. It deserves 
to be better known. L. a. r. 
THE YELLOW-WOOD. 
tUommt’s IDorK. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
O NE of the most delightful books for 
our girls is “The Five Talents of 
Women,” by the wise and witty author of 
“ How To Be Happy Though Married ” The 
five talents of women, according to Mr. 
Rusbin are: “To please people, to feed them in 
dainty ways, to clothe them, to keep them or¬ 
derly and to teach them.” Some French 
author says that a woman’s talents are oppor¬ 
tunities for doing good—suppose we add that 
to the other five, and we have the ideal of 
womanliness. It is worth noting that while 
the aesthetic Ruskin puts pleasing people first, 
he puts feeding them next—indeed, the two 
often go together. 
* * * 
THE TULIP TREE. 
Only a few feet from where I write stands 
a fine specimen of Liriodendron tulipifera, the 
Tulip-tree, White-wood or Yellow Poplar, 
now in full bloom ; but I know of no other in 
the vicinity. Perhaps one, and the principal 
reason why this tree is not oftener seen as a 
shade tree is’the supposed difficulty of trans¬ 
planting it from the woods ; but that diffi¬ 
culty is readily overcome. Take up the tree 
when an inch or two in diameter, early in 
spring, or as soon as the leaves drop in the 
fall, shorten the tap-root and cut off the stem 
about a foot above the root ; then plant prop¬ 
erly, and at least 90 per cent, will grow and 
do nicely. These trees may be raised from 
the seeds, which, if planted soon after they 
ripen in October, will germinate and send up 
fine shoots the next spring ; but if planted in 
the spring they will not make a showing un¬ 
til the next year. 
The Tulio-tree belongs to the Magnolia 
family, and is common in the Atlantic States 
from Canada south, but is often found be¬ 
yond the Alleghanies. It likes a moderately 
good, light loam or sandy soil, moist, but not 
wet, and in favorable locations grows to an 
enormous girth and hight. Downing men¬ 
tions a specimen whose stem, five feet from 
the ground, measured 22 feet and a-half in 
circumference, and was 130 feet high. The 
flowers are large and beautiful, tulip-shaped ; 
but they are borne so high as often to escape 
notice. The leaves are large and peculiar in 
form, rich and glossy. The tree is seen to its 
best advantage when standing alone. Differ¬ 
ences in soil and situation change the color of 
the wood, that is, white or yellow, as circum¬ 
stances determine, but make no difference 
with the general appearance of the tree. 
Among its other merits as a shade tree is its 
freedom from insects, only a few species being 
attracted to it. 
Now, a good many good women often lose 
sight of that important matter of pleasing 
people; they seem to think, as cares and du¬ 
ties thicken, that they may attend solely to 
material duties, without thoughts of pleasing 
in other directions. True, some are so situat¬ 
ed that any attempt at pleasing, further than 
attention to thickly-crowding duties, seems 
impossible; yet many there are who lose op¬ 
portunities in this direction. We recollect 
reading somewhere or an epitaph over a hard¬ 
working wife in some rural cemetery. It was 
very brief—after the name and age there 
were but these words: 
“She was so pleasant.” Just think how 
much daily happiness that implied—it was 
worth a whole column of ordinary praise. 
As for feeding people in dainty ways and 
clothing them, a good many busy women are 
apt to do too much of both. But “to beep 
them orderly,” you see that is put as a purely 
feminine power, and whenever we see a man 
or boy bang down his hat on one chair, his 
coat on another, and his boots just anywhere 
else, we always feel that some woman has neg¬ 
lected her duty. Orderliness doesn’t often 
come by nature, although “order is Heaven's 
first law,” but training will make it second 
nature. Begin at the beginning; let the chil¬ 
dren understand from babyhood that what 
they throw down, that must they pick up; 
that everything has its time and place, and 
it will save many an hour of picking up. Dis¬ 
order leads to dirt, too, as a natural conse¬ 
quence; teach a child to be clean and orderly, 
both in person and belongings; it is a very 
good foundation for other virtues. 
* » * 
The last talent in the list, that of teaching, 
seems essentially a woman’s prerogative. Wo 
don’t mean just teaching A, B, and C, but 
molding mind, manners and morals to be a 
harmonious whole. A child’s mother is al¬ 
ways the first and best teacher, the most nat¬ 
ural one, and sad it is to see a mother unfitted 
for this office. A good and wise mother is 
the greatest blessing this world affords, and 
she who exemplifies the five talents quoted, 
certainly deserves this title. Read the “ Fivo 
Talents of Women,” young women and old, 
and, if you contemplate the double life, follow 
it with “Howto be Happy, Though Married.” 
The author, Mr. Maray, is an English clergy¬ 
man, a Christian, a gentleman, and both wise 
and witty too. Few can read either book 
without benefit. 
The other tree to which I desire to call at¬ 
tention is Cladrastis tinctoria, the Virgiha 
lutea of Michaux, commonly known as the 
Virgilia or Yellow-wood, fine specimens of 
which may be seen in Brooklyn Park; but it 
is found at its best in Kentucky aud Tenues- 
Keep Cool. That sounds ironical these 
dog-days, when there are baking and 
churning and sweeping to do, everything to 
be done, and one pair of hands to do' it. Yet 
there is no doubt that calmness of mind does 
much to produce coolness of the body. If we 
■v 
